SPEED CAR MOTOR Lublin secured their survival in the top division in Poland in their last match of the regular season late on Friday night.
But the did not make it through due to their own skill, despite going into the match with an eight point winning margin from their meeting in Round 1. Instead, home side
MRGARDEN GKU GRUDZIADZ
thrashed them by an humiliating 52-38.
Lublin can be grateful to TRULY.WORK STAL Gorzow for missing the opportunity to go above them. Had Gorzow scored one more point in any heat during Friday's early game against forBET WLOKNIARZ Czestochowa they would have won taking two points which would have put them in sixth in the overall table.
But instead it was a 45:45 draw meaning Gorzow finish in seventh and will go into the relegation playoff against one of the Nice 1 league teams.
#GORCZE
The match was extremely even so that even by Heat 9 it was even at 27-27. But then in heat 10 and 12 Czestochowa began to pull ahead as Matej Zagar and then Leon Madsen won heats for the visitors. Before the final heat it was 40-44 and the match was tipped in favour of the Czestochowa and Gorzow's fate seemed sealed.
However, the home crowd were able to go home satisfied as Bartosz Zmarzlik and Syzmon Wozniak took home a 5:1 in the very last heat to level the scored at 45-45.
Looking back you can only think, "what if?" For example, in heat 7 - what if when Wozniak and Peter Kildemand were leading the heat 5:1, the Dane had not hit the inside kurb and momentarily lost control of his bike. It was just long enough for Zagar to overtake him so that the heat finished 4:2. And what if Anders Thomsen's bike hadn't given up at the start of Heat 10?
Both Zagar and Madsen finished with 10 points apiece for the winners and, as usual, Zmarzlik was faultless scoring 17 in 6 heats to lead for the Gorzow.
#GRULUB
Things we re going well for SPEED MOTORCAR Lublin and even when they lost heat 10 with a 5:1 they still had the match under control behind by just two, 31-29.
But in the last five heats it all went to pot for visitors as first the match and then the bonus point slide away from them.
In fact in the second half of the team only won one won heat with Andreas Jonsson (above in red and white) bring the only one taking the flag first. He would be top scorer alongside Grigorij Laguta who both scored 9+1 for visitors who were not on point at all in the last rounds.
MRGARDEN GKU GRUDZIADZ took control of the meeting as Artem Laguta won three heats, Kenneth Bjerre two and Krzysztof Buczkowski and Przemyslaw Pawlicki one each in the final eight heats of the night.
Laguta and Bjerre would both only drop one point each as the Russian finished with 14 and the Dane with 13+1.
The Extraliga 2019 is now over for these two teams. Lublin survive by finishing in sixth whilst for Grudzaidz the season is also over as they finish outside the playoffs places in fifth.
