In the second match of the Polish Championships final, Vive Targi Kielce beat Orlen Wisła Płock 36:34 and need only one more victory to defend the title. In contrast to yesterday’s game, Kielce needed an extra time to win – apparently Wisła did their homework and took a stand against their rivals.
First minutes belong to Płock who took the better start and were on the lead. Kielce’s defence did not work well, worse than a day before and Wisła made a good use of this fact. They were also helped by a pretty good performance of their goalkeeper Marcin Wichary. Płock’s defence worked fine but was not free from mistakes which resulted in penalty throws for Kielce – in the first quarter there were 5 of them. The biggest problem seemed to be Julen Aginagalde who, when given the ball, either hit the net or made it a penalty throw. It was his goal that equalized at 8:8 in 17. minute. From this point Kielce tried to push ahead and after 30 minutes they lead 18:17.
The second half did not start well for Kielce as they lost the lead (19:20); paradoxically they get it back while Płock played in a powerplay. Poorly playing in the first half Szmal started saving ball after ball and this improvement of Kielce which resulted in scoring 3 goals in a row forced Manolo Cadenas to call for a timeout. It did not change much and when the result was 30:26, one may have thought that Kielce were on the best way to win. However, Wisła did not give up, made use of their rivals’ weaker moment and managed to equalize at 31:31 in the last seconds, which meant it was going to be an extra time.
In the first part of the extra time it was Kielce that started dominate and gained 2-goal advantage (35:33). In the second half Wisła had their chance to equalize, but Venio Losert showed how to become a hero of the match being on the court only a couple seconds and saved Nenadić’s penalty throw. The second hero of the last part was Thorir Olafsson who, unlike Nenadić, scored from 7. meter and thus sealed the deal.
The third match is going to take place on 24. May in Płock.
MARTYNA USNARSKA
