ELITSERIEN: Masarna and Indianerna through to 2020 final

Both Avesta Masarna and Kumla Indianerna secured their final place with convincing home victories tonight in the secong leg of their semifinals, by a winning margin of 51-39.

Masarna v Lejonen

For Lejonen it was the end of a promising season which saw them finish top of the table before the playoffs. But in Avesta tonight, Rene Bech (0) and Kacper Woryna (3) were not able to deliver the points that Rohan Tungate (10+1) and Adrian Gala (7) had had done on Tuesday in Gislaved. 

For Masarna the difference from Tuesday night’s encounter was Vadim Tarasenko (12) coming in for Dimitri Berge (4+1) at number 2. At the same time Antonio Lindbäck, Kim Nilsson and David Bellego all upped their game to ensure an overall win of 91:89. 

Indianerna v Västervik 

Kumla has edged the first match 41:49 on Tuesday in Västervik with a strong finish gaining two 2:4s in the night’s final heats. 

Both teams were without their SGP riders and Västervik suffered the most from this as Jason Doyle had scored 16+1 on at home. He was adequately replaced by newly crowned Danish national champion, Anders Thomsen, who scored 12 pts in his first match of the season for the club. 

But tonight Mikkel Bech Jensen (6) could not equal Tuesday’s night score posted by his younger compatriot Mads Hansen (10) in the first match. And neither Linus Sundström or Sam Masters were able to get into double the double figures needed to trouble the Indians.

For Kumla Niels-Kristian Iversen has scored 9 important points in Västervik on Tuesday. But tonight he was replaced by yet another Dane, Kenneth Bjerre, who was loving the Kumla track and amassed 16+1 for the winners. 

Other than that, the (positive) shock of the night for the Indians was Joel Andersson. He just scored 5 pts in Västervik but tonight took an incredible 11+3. He came last in his final heat with the match already won. But before that he was just one point off a paid maximum from his first 5 heats. For example, in Heat 10 he beat both Gorzów’s Thomsen and Poznań’s Sundström to take the checkered flag first. 

Indianerna took the semifinal, 108–72, and Masarna have opted that the first leg will be in Kumla next Tuesday. Then, for the second match a week on Wednesday, they will be back at home in Avesta where the 2020 Bauhaus Elitserien will be decided.