Kielce secure tenth Polish league title

After having won the Polish cup title earlier in the season Vive Targi Kielce can tick off the second objective in their successful campaign as they clinched the Polish league title on Friday evening, just eight days before their debut at the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne.

Kielce beat (27:24) their only real domestic threat Orlen Wisła Płock for the third time in a row and completed the sweep in the best-of-five series on the court of the Orlen Arena. They won the tenth domestic championship and also secured the spot in the Group Phase of the VELUX EHF Champions League 2013/14.

They will be seeded in the second pot before the Group Phase draw, unless they shock FC Barcelona Intersport in the VELUX EHF FINAL4 semi-final next Saturday. If Vive make it to the final through the record winners of the premier continental competition, they will take over MKB Veszprém KC in the seeding and will replace them in the first pot.

In the third match of the final series Kielce had a great start leading by six goals after first ten minutes. They maintained at least three-goal gap almost throughout the whole match, but with just three minutes the EHF Cup participant, Orlen closed to only one-goal difference. However  Adam Wiśniewski failed to equalise from the fastbreak and Kielce quickly regained their three-goal lead which they held until the final whistle.

“If you do not start well in these matches, you can hardly dream about a victory,” said the interim coach of Orlen Krzysztof Kisiel, who will be replaced by Manolo Cadenas from Reale Ademar León.

“We are very happy with this victory and with the whole season in the Polish league. We also win a Polish Cup and the next stop is Colonge, where we want to show our best handball as we have nothing to lose there,” the best scorer of Kielce in the VELUX EHF Champions League Michał Jurecki said.