Polish Champions have won their 12th Cup after taking a 26:23 victory over Orlen Wisła Płock.
The best Polish teams beat their rivals in the semi-finals on Saturday. Kielce were better than Górnik Zabrze (38:28), Wisła defeated Azoty Puławy 40:37 and, as expected, were to meet in the final.
Both teams lacked a few of their players; Mariusz Jurkiewicz got injured on Saturday and couldn’t help Wisła while Kielce had to manage without Tkaczyk, Musa and Lijewski.
Płock took the better start. Even though the result was tight, Wisła maintained a 1-/2- goal edge. Their defence looked solid and Rodrigo Corrales began his game by saving a couple of throws (including a triple save). In 11. minute Kielce lost another player due to Tobias Reichmann’s injury. It wasn’t the only problem of Vive as the referees were lavish with giving out suspensions. They played double short-handed already at the beginning, but what is more important, after 20 minutes Jurecki and Grabarczyk were sent off already twice. Wisła players were being suspended too. Neither the players, nor the benches liked referees’ decisions, but they were especially frustrating for Manolo Cadenas who received a yellow card and was being calmed down by a delegate. 2 minutes before the halftime, Kielce lost another player – Michał Jurecki got his 3rd suspension and a red card in result but for the time being it wasn’t a great problem because they played in triple powerplay as Ghionea, Zelenović and Syprzak got sent off in the space of over a minute. Vive took advantage of it and they left the court leading 11:9.
The second half seemed to have began well for Kielce with Bielecki’s goal but in the first minute they lost another player – Grabarczyk followed Jurecki’s footsteps and received his 3rd suspension. Wisła stormed ahead and scored 5 times in a row and taking a 2-goal lead. Kielce started making errors, Corrales was still playing amazingly and Wisła seemed to get on the very good track. In 42. they were 3 goals ahead, and instead keeping up the momentum, Kielce started coming from behind. With 10 minutes to go they got back on the lead (20:19). Now Wisła started making errors which allowed Kielce to lead 25:21 in 58. minute. Płock had a chance to prolong their hopes for an extra time but Daszek wasted a fastbreak and Štrlek sealed the deal by scoring for 26:23.
The best goalkeeper of the tournament – Rodrigo Corrales
The best scorer – Karol Bielecki
MVP – Kamil Syprzak
TEXT: MARTYNA USNARSKA
