Karacic and Milic save the day for 'Red&Black' as Vardar edge Zagreb

PPD Zagreb - Vardar

In what was one of SEHA Gazprom League's most interesting, toughest matches of the season so far Vardar managed to reach their fourteenth win of the season beating PPD Zagreb away from home with 24:25.

'Lions' opened the match better enlarging the gap to three less than five minutes into the encounter. Defenses however dominating the first part of the match in which fans in Sutinska vrela sports hall saw only 24 goals (13:11). A bit more than three minutes before the half-time whistle guests managed to close the gap at 11:11 forcing home-team coach Saracevic to call for a time-out after which his guys made a 2:0 series to end the first half.

Second half was played goal-for-goal with Vardar's 5-1 defense led by last season's SEHA F4 MVP Joan Canellas slowly turning the match in their favor. A little more than five minutes before the final whistle Macedonians for the first time opened the gap to two (20:22) but hosts were quick in response bringing it back to 22:22 in less than a minute. In the end, Luka Mrakovcic netted his fourth of the night equalizing the game at 24:24 with less than a minute to go only to give Igor Karacic a chance to bring Vardar their fourteenth win of the season with his second of the night. Mrakovcic later had a chance to become home team's hero of the day but he failed to score from PPD Zagreb' final 10-second long attack with Strahinja Milic grabbing his fourteenth save of the night.

Leon Susnja led Zagreb with five goals while their goalies combined for 10 saves. On the other side Timur Dibirov and Luka Cindric netted five each. Strahinja Milic had 14 saves including the one which sealed the deal in this one.