Vardar celebrate against Meshkov

«Вардар» побеждает БГК в последнем матче регулярного сезона и финиширует на второй позиции

Meshkov - Vardar

Macedonians champions have managed to outplay their opponents from Belarus in a clash in Brest winning with 32:30 taking revenge for the loss in the first part of the season in Skopje.

Vardar have decided to travel to Brest with only 7 players and two goalkeepers due to tough CL’ week behind them and coach Gonzales obviously made a good call taking a victory to ensure position 2. Vardar were in lead through the bigger part of the first half with Meshkov taking over the leading role with less than 5 minutes remaining on the clock. However, after first 30 the result was 18:18. In the middle of the second half Gonzales’ players have managed to speed up the tempo a bit enlarging the gap to 3 and confidently cruising towards the victory in the final clash of SEHA Gazprom league’ 2015/16 regular season.

Luka Cindrić scored 9 goals, Manaskov added 8 and Alex Dujshebaev was brilliant with 6 in first 30. Speaking of hosts Tioumentsev had 7, Baranau was 3/3.

With their 14th victory of the season Vardar have clinched position 2 after the regular part of the season and they will face off against PPD Zagreb in F4 Varaždin semis. Meshkov will on the other side look for their ticket to finals against MVM Veszprem.

Raul Gonzales, Vardar coach:

This game was important for us and we’ve proved that on court fighting for the second place in SEHA Gazprom League after the regular part of the season. Looking back at it, season was quite good and I have to congratulate each of my players on it.

Alex Dujshebaev, Vardar player:

I’m very happy to win here. Meshkov Brest is a strong team, but we fought until the end and played a very good game. Very good result for us, we are very happy.

Sergii Bebeshko, Meshkov coach:

I was aware of Vardar arriving here with a limited amount of players and I tried to make my players realize that this is an important match. We were not playing as good as we could in CL eighth-finals and we were hoping to make that bitter taste disappear today with a victory which unfortunately did not occur. Vardar wanted this more than we did and we can’t do anything but congratulate them. Our attack did not play good at all. In general I believe the team must feel ashamed after such a loss.

Artsiom Selvasiuk, Meshkov player:

Congratulations to Vardar. We did not score several times in counterattacks. Vardar were able to enlarge the gap after some easy goals and it was not hard for them to keep the difference until the very end.