In the match held in Kaunas on Wednesday, the hosts of the match defeated Riga “Dinamo” 5:2 and celebrated their second victory in a row. After this meeting, the result of the series up to three victories became equal and “Kaunas City” will compete with the Latvians for a place in the semi-finals in the decisive match, which will take place on Friday in Latvia.
After the ineffective first part of the match, “Kaunas City” started working in the second half, which they started very successfully. Egidijus Binkulis, who escaped to a quick attack, put Kaunas forward with a powerful shot into the near corner of the goal (21:43, rez. translated by Daniyar Gabdullinas). Not only that, he soon took part in another attack, this time finding a free Paulių Grybauskas, and he sent the puck into the goal from a grateful situation (23:32, rez. translated by Lukas Žukauskas, E. Binkulis).
Another great section was organized by Kaunas in the middle of the match. Two more quick attacks turned into two more goals. At first, Bogdan Stupaks, who ran away from the goalkeeper, solved all the problems by himself (31:57), and immediately following, Aivaras Bendžius, who corrected his teammate’s shot, increased the advantage of “Kaunas City” even more (32:15, rez. translated by Povilas Verenis, Nursultanas Belgibayev).
The successful episodes of Kiril Tambijev helped the Riga “Dinamo” team recover following these blows. The forward sent the puck into the home team’s goal twice and revived the intrigue in the match (33:24, report by Mikelis Redlihas and 36:58, report by M. Redlihas, Juris Zieminšas).
Although Rigas needed goals in the third quarter, more dangerous episodes occurred right at their goal. The only goal of the half was scored by members of the Lithuanian team, when “Kaunas City” striker Povilas Verenis scored (52:31, rez. perd. A. Bendžius).
The coach of “Kaunas City” team, which won the second victory in a row, Sergejus Durdin, admitted that following gaining the lead, his players lost their concentration and should play smarter in such episodes.
“Today we saw a different game than in the first three meetings. It seemed to be all regarding who would score the first goal. We were lucky to score not just one, but four goals, but later on we lost our concentration and let the opponents score twice. In such moments, we should be smarter”, said the coach following the match.
The decisive match of the series will be played on Friday in Riga, and the winning team will advance to the semi-final stage of the OHL, where they will face Zemgale/LLU.
