End of the Regular Season in Group A: The Champions Won All the Matches

February 27, 2023

The BHL regular season is over. The winner of Group A is the Viljandi club, the defending BHL champion. Viljandi HC is the only club in the BHL regular season to have won all ten games and not lost a single point. The final Matchweek decided which teams in Group A would take 2nd and 3rd places.

TOP MATCH

Mistra and Dragūnas Klaipėda met in the penultimate round with the same number of points. Their match decided which team would rank second in the group. Mistra defeated Dragūnas for the second time this season and secured 2nd place in the group. Dragūnas remained third.

Mistra – Dragūnas Klaipėda 35:32 (21:15)
Mistra – Naumenko 6, Aus 5, Orlovskyi 5, Buinenko 5.
Dragūnas – Šmantauskas 12, Simonavičius 7, Drakšas 3, Kairys 3.

Jüri Lepp (coach, Mistra):
It was an exceptional game. Several times it seemed the game was pretty much in the bag, but Dragunas fought back into the game again and again. Fortunately, we were more determined in the decisive moments. Emotions were running high and tension was in the air, as the statistics show as well.

Gintaras Cibulskis (coach, Dragūnas Klaipėda):
We feel bitterly disappointed. We wanted to win against Mistra in Estonia. Before the game, during the team players’ warm-up, I had a feeling that something was not right. Coaches have that feeling when something seems to be missing. There were a lot of jostling between the players, nerves, tension and mistakes. We defended poorly and conceded many goals.

In the other match this Saturday, Viljandi HC defeated the Granitas-Karys Kaunas team and secured first place in the group.

Viljandi HC – Granitas-Karys Kaunas 34:26 (21:13)
Viljandi – Koks 9, Voika 5, Ott Varik 4, Basarab 4, Pertelson 4.
Granitas-Karys – Jurkevičius 5, Lazauskas 5, Štarolis 4, Grigas 3, Eiva 3.

Kristo Voika (captain, Viljandi HC)
Today’s match was a bit slow. We wanted to gain more speed in the offense but at the end we were still quite passive! Since the game had no big meaning we tried to give a lot of game time to everybody. Hopefully tomorrow we are a bit better in every aspect of the game. At the end of the day a nice victory at home.

There were two more matches on Sunday. They made no difference in the standings.

Viljandi HC – Dragūnas Klaipėda 28:19 (15:11)
Viljandi – Ott Varik 7, Koks 5, Basarab 4.
Dragunas – Šmantauskas 5, Drakšas 3, Odinokov 3.

Gintaras Cibulskis (coach, Dragūnas Klaipėda):
We wanted to win at least one game in Estonia, but we lost both games. On the way to Viljandi after Saturday’s game, our bus slid off the road. There was a lot of snow and it was slippery. Fortunately, the bus did not overturn. It took 2–3 hours to find help and have our bus towed back to the road. I let the young players play more in the match against Viljandi. Thus, there was no shortage of youthful mistakes. However, our young players learned some good lessons.

Marko Koks (coach, Viljandi HC):
We wanted to finish group games with victory. And we were successful about that. We can rotate players as yesterday and that was our goal for the weekend. Now we start preparing next games and looking forward to quarter final.

Mistra – Granitas-Karys Kaunas 32:27 (13:17)
Mistra – Orlovskyi 9, Anton 5, Naumenko 4, Rõuk 3, Aus 3.
Granitas – Jurkevičius 10, Štarolis 6, Lazauskas 6, Montvilas 3.

Jüri Lepp (coach, Mistra):
In the first half, we gave everyone playing time. In the second half, our players clearly overrode the opponents. All in all, an outstanding weekend, but the real games are yet to begin.

Quarterfinals pairs: Viljandi HC – SK Tapa/N.R Energy, Mistra – VHC Šviesa, Dragūnas – ZRHK TENAX Dobele, Granitas-Karys – Pölva Serviti.

Group A

Position	Team	G	W	L	GF	GA	+/-	Pts.
1.	Viljandi HC	10	10	0	305	240	65	20
2.	Mistra	10	8	2	295	265	30	16
3.	HC Dragunas	10	6	4	299	275	24	12
4.	Granitas-Karys	10	3	7	279	302	-23	6
5.	ASK Zemessardze/LSPA	10	3	7	267	306	-39	6
6.	HK Ogre/HYDROX	10	0	10	296	353	-57	0