RSV Lahn-Dill reaches the playoff final

In the fight for the German wheelchair basketball championship, RSV Lahn-Dill moved into the playoff final against Thuringia Bulls with a 69:47 against Hannover United.

(aj) The RSV Lahn-Dill is early in the playoff final for the German wheelchair basketball championship. On Saturday evening, the Wetzlar team beat Hannover United in the Rittal Arena with 69:47 (17: 13/37: 19/49: 34) and left the previous week’s success in Lower Saxony the required second success in the “best-of-three” semi-final series consequences. The top scorer of a clear home win in the end was the Australian center Michael Auprince, who and his team will now face defending champion Thuringia Bulls in the finals.

But as clear as the result was after 40 minutes of play in the Rittal Arena, at the beginning the guest from Hanover showed that despite the mortgage of a home defeat in game one, he was not willing to give up without a fight. Above all, the two German national players Jan Sadler and Matthias Güntner were wide awake from the first second and thus ensured a quick 2: 8 (4th) from the point of view of the host RSV Lahn-Dill.

“At the beginning we didn’t have the intensity that we wanted. We certainly can’t afford that in the final, ”said head coach Janet Zeltinger, not at all impressed by the start of her team, which resulted in an early break. But it was still to take a while for the German record champions to reach operating temperature. Only after the 6:12 (7th) by ex-Wetzlar Jan Haller did the host’s turbo finally ignite.

The increase in performance went hand in hand with the replacement of Catharina Weiß and Michael Auprince. The only 20-year-old national player did her job as a replacement for the injured Annabel Breuer and the Australian giant should run under the Hanoverian basket in the further course of the game. But initially it was a three from Böhme who made the 11:12 connection (9th), before Brian Bell was able to set the course for his team only a little later at 21:13 (12th). In the second quarter, RSV Lahn-Dill turned a 25:19 (15th) at halftime into 37:19, to which US center Bell and his compatriot Steve Serio each contributed twelve points.

After the break, it was time for Michael Auprince, who could not be stopped under the basket or from the middle distance. In the end, the long RSV center got 18 points and this with a strong throw rate of exactly 75 percent. The Australian also benefited from a total of 21 assists from the Bell-Böhme-Serio trio, which Auprince always knew how to put in the limelight. The fact that RSV Lahn-Dill was no longer in trouble in round two and was able to extend its lead over 45:27 (26th) to 69:42 (38th), it also had a 38:24 rebound superiority and its qualitatively longer rebound Owe bank. Of this, the RSV was able to contribute a strong 28 points to the success, while this was only four points for the guest from Lower Saxony.

“The bottom line was that we played well today, but we also saw the weaknesses we should and above all have to work on. We can do all of this much better, ”said Janet Zeltinger in her conclusion on the semi-final decision.

In the final series, the RSV Lahn-Dill meets its opponent Thuringia Bulls. Coach Michael Engel’s team also booked their ticket to the finals early with an 82:61 home win over Baskets Rahden. The Central Hessians will appear in Thuringia on May 8th, before enjoying home rights in game two and optionally three on May 15 and 16 in the Rittal-Arena Wetzlar.

RSV Lahn-Dill: Michael Auprince (18), Brian Bell (14/1 threesome), Steve Serio (14), Thomas Böhme (11/1), Ian Sagar (6), Dominik Mosler (4), Simon Brown (2 ), Mark Beissert, Christopher Huber, Catharina Weiß, Peyman Mizan (ne).

Hannover United: Matthias Güntner (18), Jan Sadler (15/1), Jan Haller (6), Alexander Budde (4), Oliver Jantz (4), Vanessa Erskine, Eike Gößling, Tobias Hell.