Matchbericht ¦ 1. Liga ¦ Grasshopper IV vs. Vitis

GC IV achieve 2nd place in league!

GC IV played their last game of a disrupted season last night, losing to the runaway league winners, Vitis.

Having already secured 2nd place in the league with a win against Uster last week, we were fighting to stay in the race for first.  Vitis however, proved to be much too strong for us, as they have been for everyone else this season, taking the victory and with it first place, with two games in hand!  

Joel managed to excuse himself from parental duties for an hour or two to lead the team against Silvio Soom.  After a couple of clear games, he was able to wake up enough to push the third to a tie-break, but Silvio proved too strong and took the victory 3-0.  I played Silvio's older brother, Roman, and started as I feared, by getting chopped clearly in the first. In the second I got rather closer, pushing it to a tie-break, and was able to get on top in the third, winning clearly against an apparently tiring opponent.  Roman wasn't however finished, and as I wasn't able to keep the pressure on consistently in the fourth, he took the game clearly to give Vitis the second victory; 3-1.

Adam and Paul were up for the second half, against Lino Kaiser and Philipp Rohrer respectively.  Adam had played and beaten Lino in the away leg already, so was confident that he would be able to get the win. That confidence proved to be well founded, and despite close first and third games, Adam took the win well to finish off an unbeaten season.

Paul on the other hand, didn't really turn up until the third game.  Philipp played a very solid match and took the first two games comfortably, to 3 and 4 respectively.  Down 7-0 in the third, Paul finally realised that it would be a very good idea to avoid the tin and apply a bit of pressure to the game.  Philipp was now pushed out of his comfort zone and started to look as though he was not appreciating having to actually run, but it proved to be too late - he was able to close out the final game 11-8, quashing brief hopes of an amazing come back!

The season as a whole went pretty well for us - two convincing wins over Uster along with a somewhat surprising win over Cham (great result for Andrew against Fabio Fuchs!) ensured we were in the running for a good place. With winning draws in both matches against a strong Winterthur side as well as in the home match against Cham, we have ended up with a very good 2nd position in the league.

Many thanks to everyone who played this season - here's looking forward to next year!

Mark

Herren 1. Liga, Group B