Baskets Jena in Bad Homburg: New Center, Little Time

When the Baskets Jena take the court in Bad Homburg on Sunday, Lina Lieckfeld will be in the lineup, even though she hasn’t completed a single week of practice with us yet. The 24-year-old center is 1.83 meters tall, joined the team this Friday, and is set to make her debut for the VIMODROM Baskets Jena in the 2nd Toyota DBBL South. There isn’t much time to gel with the team. We hope it works out anyway.

Lina is already familiar with the league. She has played three seasons in the 2nd DBBL for four clubs, including in our Southern Division in Bamberg and Wasserburg. We can use that experience, because things have been a bit up in the air under the basket lately: We lost the rebounding battle against Grünberg 33–68.

We still have a score to settle with Bad Homburg: Last season, we lost both games against the Falcons. Now it’s a fresh start in a new season, and we’d like to write a different chapter in that story.

After three matchdays, Bad Homburg sits in second place with a 4–2 record. The Falcons opened the season with a 74–70 win over Bamberg and followed that up with a 68–64 victory in Mainz—both games were close. In Würzburg, the score was 29–29 at halftime, but they ended up losing 53–72. Their coach is Jay Brown, and their leading scorer so far is Meghan Kenefick with 37 points in three games.

We, on the other hand, are still waiting for our first win after three games and are in eleventh place. Against Grünberg, we led 20–12 after the first quarter, but then managed only four points in the second quarter. Jada Smith scored 25 points, accounting for nearly half of our total. We want to avoid a slump like the one we had in the second quarter when we play in Bad Homburg.

Tip-off is on Sunday, October 25, at 4:30 p.m. at the TFP Sportpark, Niederstedter Weg 2, 61348 Bad Homburg. Anyone who can make the trip is welcome to come. We thank everyone else for keeping their fingers crossed for us.