Giesen II

Hauke Wagner captained the first team through 2025, but before that, like most of TSV Giesen's German internationals, he came up through the reserve side that plays under the Grizzlys II banner. That pipeline is the point of the team, and it has kept doing that job since the volleyball department split off in 1981 under a men's club founded in 1911.

Giesen II plays in the 2. Bundesliga North, where its supporters call it the "Superzweite," and its record there tells its own story of a club unwilling to overreach. The reserve side won the division in 2008 and again in 2011, but on both occasions promotion into the top flight was left to the first team; when Giesen II itself went up, in 2008, the stay lasted a single season before relegation sent it back down. In 2011 and 2012, promotion was waived outright for financial reasons, a decision that says as much about the club as any title.

Between 2007 and 2011, TSV Giesen's volleyball operation merged with MTV 1848 Hildesheim to compete as TSV Giesen/48 Hildesheim, a partnership that dissolved back into two separate identities and left MTV 1848 Hildesheim as the club's sharpest rival; for the reserve team specifically, that rivalry belongs to Sportfreunde Aligse.

Registered in Giesen, the club nonetheless sends both its senior and reserve sides to play in nearby Hildesheim, at the Sparkassen-Arena, a ground that holds around 2,450 seated spectators and just under 2,900 once standing room is counted in.