As of: March 15, 2024, 7:01 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
Last year, Herrsching's setter Eric Burggräf played for Düren against the WWK Volleys.
© imago
In the first play-off game for the German championship, Herrsching's volleyball players will meet SVG Lüneburg on Saturday in BMW Park.
Herrsching
– The 2023/2024 volleyball season is over for TSV Haching Munich, ASV Dachau, VC Bitterfeld-Wolfen and Netzhoppers Königs Wusterhausen.
For the other eight Bundesliga teams, however, things are only just getting started: the play-offs start at the weekend.
The WWK Volleys Herrsching will meet SVG Lüneburg in the quarterfinals.
The North Germans finished the main round in fourth place.
The Herrschingers improved to fifth place on the last day of the main round and thus avoided a duel with VfB Friedrichshafen.
But even against Lüneburg it will be anything but easy.
After all, they made it to the final of the CEV Cup.
Since the Lüneburg home venue is not available at the weekend, the home advantage was swapped.
Game one will take place on Saturday, 7 p.m., at BMW Park, the second leg will take place next Saturday (6 p.m.) in Lüneburg.
If there is no winner after these two duels, the decisive third game would take place a day later.
Thomas Ranner's anticipation is clearly noticeable.
“The play-offs are one of the highlights of the season,” says the Herrschinger head coach.
And the Ammerseers are hoping for more than in the club's first highlight, the (lost) cup final against the Berlin Recycling Volleys.
For Ranner, it is an advantage that “we play at home first”.
With a win you can give your opponent some homework to do.
“It’s just up to us,” says Eric Burggräf about the chances of progressing.
The Herrschinger setter is hoping for a similar backdrop to last year.
At that time, almost 3,500 fans streamed into the venerable venue in Munich's Westend and saw a 3-0 defeat against the Powervolleys Düren - back then still with Burggräf and diagonal attacker Filip John.
Now they both want to ensure that WWK Volleys Herrsching's second big goal is finally achieved: in their anniversary year, the Ammerseers finally want to advance to the play-off semi-finals.
In the past nine seasons, the Herrschingers have been in the last eight seven times.
In the premiere season of 2014/2015 they were eliminated in the pre-play-offs, and in 2019/2020 the Bundesliga season was canceled due to corona.
Among the guests, Burggräf is particularly afraid of middle blocker Matthew Knigge and outside attacker Erik Röhrs.
“We have to stop him,” says Ranner.
The Herrschinger head coach also has great respect for the German players Joshua Kunstmann and Theo Mowinkel.
But of course Ranner also has the utmost trust in his team.
Just in time for the play-offs, the Herrsching players seem to be getting back on track in terms of play.
The Ammersee team confidently won the difficult away game in Freiburg 3-0.
Play-off facts:
Herrsching and Lüneburg have faced each other
a total of 25 times in the past ten years.
The balance speaks clearly for the North Germans: 18 wins, seven defeats.
In this year's main round, both teams won their home game.
Since being promoted to the Bundesliga in 2014,
the WWK Volleys Herrsching have made it into the play-offs seven times.
Only in the premiere season 2014/2015 was the final result in the pre-play-offs against CV Mitteldeutschland (0:2).
After that, they regularly qualified for the round of the last eight, but the Ammerseers were always denied a place in the semi-finals.
Sometimes clear, sometimes close, sometimes dramatic: the most dramatic was certainly the quarter-final exit in the 2020/2021 season.
SVG Lüneburg was the luckier team in the tiebreak twice.
The previous play-off results:
2015/16 0:2 against VfB Friedrichshafen;
2016/17 0-2 against United Volleys Rhein-Main;
2017/18 1:2 against United Volleys Rhein-Main;
2018/19 1:2 against Alpenvolleys Haching;
2019/20 canceled due to Corona;
2020/21 0:2 against SVG Lüneburg;
2021/22 1:2 against VfB Friedrichshafen;
2022/23 0:2 against Powervolleys Düren.