Last weekend, our Hucks Open team traveled to the far east of Germany to participate in the Dresden Invite, serving as the first preparation tournament for the Open outdoor season. New on board: Coach Dougal – who immediately jumped into action as both head coach and cameraman. Due to the renovation of our Thursday training field, we had only one outdoor training session to prepare for the tournament. The team had some new additions, with four players playing their first Open tournament with the Hucks in Dresden.
The Dresden Invite featured a group stage on Saturday and an upper/lower pool phase on Sunday – with games and schedules identical to those at the German Championships later in the year.
In the first game of the season, we faced Paradisco Jena. As expected with our limited preparation, we started rather slowly and with several mistakes, quickly falling behind and unable to recover. The game ended with a 6-15 loss. We significantly improved in the second game against Uprising from Poland. Their physical defense and playing style posed a major challenge for us. However, we were able to find our rhythm as the game progressed. In the end, it was a 7-15 loss – but overall a good performance.
In the Saturday evening match, we faced the Germany Grandmasters. It was a windy and scrappy game. We started well and took a 7-4 lead, but then things tightened up again. Due to many turnovers and simple mistakes on both sides, the game remained close. Only shortly before the end were we able to pull ahead slightly and, after a total of 110 minutes, win the game 12-10. That put us in third place overall, meaning we would continue in the lower pool on Sunday.
Sunday also started off poorly for us. Against the hosts NU from Dresden, we quickly fell behind – the wind and their zone defense caused major problems for our offense. We went into halftime down 4-8. After a traded point to make it 5-9, we managed to fight our way back into the game, primarily thanks to a much fiercer defense. With several breaks, we tied the game at 9-9 and eventually came out on top with a 13-11 win. A nice comeback win!
Our last game was against Late Game Leipzig, who we will see again at the Open German Championships. Due to several injuries on their side, we agreed on a shortened game to 11. Leipzig quickly took a 4-point lead. We fought back to 3-5, but Leipzig ultimately secured the win at 11-5.
Overall, it was a great weekend filled with lots of good vibes and strong plays – a solid start to the Open season. Many thanks to Dresden for the invitation and organizing the tournament, and to all the teams for the intense and well-spirited games!
Those who took part were:
Kevin, Shine, Oleg, Hahn, Matthias, Dom, Stefan, Pepe, Julian, David, Maxi, Jo, Jakob, Georg, Lyderic, Kiwi, Gigi, Fabi G, Freddy, Lorenz, Coach Dougal
