Ansbach building a reputation for scrappiness
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STUTTGART, Germany – Just two weekends into the 2012 DODDS-Europe volleyball season, coaches are starting to see trends.
Take the Ansbach Cougars for instance.
Patch defeated Ansbach 25-23, 4-25, 13-25, 25-18, 15-13, on Saturday, but it wasn’t easy.
Ansbach, described by two coaches at the meet as “scrappy”, distinctly showed how their style of player sets them apart from Patch.
“A lot of teams are more polished, so they don’t need to play that scrappiness,” said Julie Heintz, the Schweinfurt coach. “But (Ansbach) digs balls you think are kills. You assume they’re gonna be kills and they’re not. They go after everything. They play every ball that’s been shanked. Everything. That’s a hard team to beat because they never give up.”
“Their serving,” said Mike Rubino, Patch coach. “Their scrappiness. They’re a darn good team and their coaching staff over there has been doing a tremendous amount of work for them.”
After losing the first game against Patch so closely, Ansbach easily defeated Patch in the second and third games.
“In the second game they served like eight in a row to us and we weren’t able to pass to them,” Rubino said. “And so they definitely had it going on the second and third game.”
“It was two different teams out there at first,” Ansbach coach Matt Cochenour said. “Set one against Patch. It was 24-15 and we came back to (25-23). The second game - holy cow! I mean, I don’t who… that was the best team I’ve ever seen play. Same with the third game.”
But Patch tightened up its game in the fourth game and won it in the fifth – barely.
“The fourth game we let them back in,” Cochenour said. “And the fifth game it was what it was. Patch has a great team. Rachel (Hess) is a great hitter and they had everybody working on all cylinders.”
Ansbach bounced back against Schweinfurt, 25-10, 25-19, 25-21.
Other contests at the four-team meet included Patch beating Vilseck, 25-23, 25-21, 25-20 and Vilseck defeating Schweinfurt 25-14, 18-25, 25-17, 25-18.
