Elitseriepremiär - Elite Series Premier

The day we have all been waiting for has finally arrived: Elite Serien premier match Ljungby vs. Gislaved! The team met at Sunnerbohallen a little after 11 to load up the cars for the hour drive to Gislaved. I noticed that Daniel was wearing a suit, turned to Jo to quote How I Met Your Mother’s character Barney, and said “suit up!” As soon as I spoke, Jocke and Jimmie walked up wearing, wait for it, the EXACT same suit as Daniel. So I did what anyone would have done in that situation: take pictures while shouting “suit up!” at them.

Daniel, Jimmie, and Jocke

Everyone loaded up the cars and we began our drive. Once we arrived at the gym, the team took a leisure walk around the town to loosen up our bodies from the drive. Malin and I were jamming out to my “Boy Banders” iPod playlist – ok, mostly I was jamming, and Malin just was laughing at me. Heading into the locker room, we all were getting really excited for the match. After everyone was decked out in our gear (knee-high socks, black Euro-style kneepads, billboard-esque spandex and red warm up shirts) it was time to head out to the gym. Before we stepped through the doors, Sofie turned to me and said that this gym is terrible and the lights are awful. Sure enough, as soon as we walked in, an ugly yellow paint job and prison-ward lighting greeted us. Fantastic.

Me and Selma's reactions to the boys being "suited up"

The match warm up went fairly well, everyone seemed to be finding their groove. Once the first game started, however, you could feel a mixture of nerves and excitement. Overall, our serve receive was pretty weak (we were aced 12 times; 7 times in the first set alone!), as was our serving (we only made 6 aces, with 12 errors). When we were able to be in system, our hitters were able to be very effective. The final scores were: 17-25, 18-25, 25-20, and 22-25. Despite being down in almost every set, we had a lot of fight and gradually became more aggressive as the match went on. Jo was named player of the match for our team, receiving 4 lottery tickets as her award. This is apparently common that one player from each team is named “player of the match” and will get some sort of gift from the host team. Pretty sweet deal, if you ask me.

Stats, anyone?

Jo (middle) – 11 kills, 1 error, 21 attempts; 0 aces, 2 errors; 3 blocks

Malin (outside) – 13 kills, 7 errors, 47 attempts; 1 ace, 3 errors

Julle (rightside) – 11 kills, 4 errors, 33 attempts; 0 aces, 1 error; 1 block

Sofie (outside) – 4 kills, 1 error, 19 attempts; 1 ace, 2 errors

Jazzi (middle) – 2 kills, 1 error, 8 attempts; 0 ace, 1 error; 2 blocks

Me (setter) – 2 kills, 2 errors, 9 attempts; 4 aces, 3 errors; 2 blocks

Total, we had 43 kills, 16 errors, 138 attempts (.196), 6 aces, 12 errors; 8 blocks


I'm not sure if digs or assists are kept, they don't seem to be listed on the stat sheet, but I can ask for future reference.

Gislaved’s top performer, Whitney (American), had 19 kills, 6 errors, 42 attempts. 

To see the full match statistics click HERE!! and then click on "Gislaved - Ljungby 3-1"

You can also watch our match ONLINE !