Oilers leave Kadetten with no chance

After beating Kiel in the previous round, Plock made a significant step towards the knockout stage by leaving Kadetten behind, with the match only being equal for 25 minutes.

    •    All Plock court players score for the second straight win
    •    Top scorer was Hungarian Kadetten playmaker Gabor Csaszar with seven goals.
    •    The Swiss champions need a miracle to proceed to the Last 16, as they are still on zero points.
    •    Plock again proved their home strength – all points they have taken, they took in the Orlen Arena.

GROUP A:

Orlen Wisla Plock (POL) vs Kadetten Schaffhausen (SUI) 33:26 (15:12)

They took a draw against Veszprém, they beat Kiel – and now they took two extremely crucial points in the race for the Last 16 of the VELUX EHF Champions League against Schaffhausen: Orlen Wisla Plock again proved their extreme strength on home court on Thursday night.

Having won five points in the Orlen Arena now, the Polish champions seem to be on course for the knockout stage, while the Swiss champions still are on zero points.

The final results looks more than clear, but for 25 minutes, the Swiss champions were on an equal level with the Polish runners-up.

Like against Flensburg in Round 6, Kadetten had the better start, led by 11:9, before Plock turned the tide.

Thursday, again the goalkeeper performance was a key for success, but this time it was not Spanish Rodrigo Corrales, but Polish Adam Morawski, who shut up his shop.

Four minutes before the half-time buzzer, Schaffhausen were ahead by 12:11, but then Plock stroke back, netting in by several counter attacks to be ahead by 15:12 at the break.

In contrast to their previous matches against Kiel and Flensburg, Kadetten now were shaken so hard that they could not manage to return. The crowd at Plock stood as one behind their team, which after the break continued their winning way.

Orlen’s defence stood strong, caused a series of turnovers, which they turned into counter attack goals. Thus, it took the Oilers only seven minutes after the break to gain their first and decisive seven goals advance at 21:14 in the first ever encounter with Kadetten and to decide the crucial match.

After losing against Bjerringbro on home court, Schaffhausen again lost against a team, against whom they fought for the Last16 spot – and their supposed opponents BSV and Plock are clearly ahead in the ranking now, so it looks like mission impossible for Schaffhausen to proceed to the knockout stage.

Even seven goals from their again extraordinary Hungarian playmaker Gabor Czaszar were not enough to prevent the Swiss side from another clear defeat.

On the Oilers side Ghionea (6), De Toledo and Ivic (each 5) were the top scorers.

Post-match comments

Piotr Przybecki (coach of Plock): "It was tough game for us, at the beginning we were too nervous. The important thing was that we have many players on the bench who I could use. Each of them brought something positivie to the court and it was our great adventage in this game."

Lars Walther (coach of Kadetten): "It was not our best day, but at the moment we have a lot of injuries. We came here with one goalkeeper. We played quite well in the first 25 minutes, but then we lost it. In the first half our goalkeeper played very well with over 40 per cent save rate. We started bad in the second half and made many technical mistakes. Today we lost against a better team."