The season of the Baltic leagues was unproductive for the Lithuanian teams

by times news cr

2024-04-23 14:38:23

In the spring of 2024, Latvians won the most prizes in general tournaments. The women’s basketball competition was won by Riga TTT, men’s handball – Tenax from Duobelė, women’s volleyball – Riga RSU, men’s ice hockey – Riga “Mogo”, women’s ice hockey – Rīga.

Estonians extended their dominance in men’s volleyball in the Baltic League – TalTech from Tallinn became the champion. Two tournaments of the Baltic region were won by teams from further countries: men’s basketball – Slobojansk “Prometej” from Ukraine, women’s handball – Kauniainen’s GrIFK from Finland.

The best Lithuanian results are the second place. Klaipėda LCC became the vice-champion of the Baltic Women’s Basketball League, Vilnius “Tauras” of the women’s handball.

Basketball

Klaipėda LCC women’s basketball team was the only Lithuanian team that reached the Baltic League finals this spring. In the best season in the club’s history, LCC basketball players could only match the clear leader of the region’s women’s basketball team, Riga TTT.

LCC first finished second in the regular season of the Baltic League before losing the finals to defending champions TTT.

Two more Lithuanian teams competed in the final four. Klaipėda “Neptūnas” defeated Vilnius “Kibirkšta” in the match for the third place.

Before this season, Estonian clubs refused to play in the Baltic League. So six Lithuanian and seven Latvian teams competed in the tournament. Two Lithuanian teams “Šiauliai” and “Aistės” Kaunas fell in the quarter-final series, while “Panevėžys”, which played the weakest among Lithuanians, took eleventh place in the regular season.

The men’s basketball clubs of Latvia and Estonia also play in a joint tournament, to which the champion of Ukraine Slobožansk “Prometey”, driven from home by Russian aggression, contributed two years ago.

It was “Prometej” that became the champion of the Latvian-Estonian league for the second time in a row last weekend. The team of Slobožansk defeated the basketball players of Tallinn “Kalev-Cram” 91:83 in the final. Riga VEF beat Ventspils club in the match for the third place.

Eight Estonian, seven Latvian and one Ukrainian team played in the Latvian-Estonian league.

Volleyball

Lithuanian women’s volleyball teams took a big step back. If last year two teams from our countries met in the final of the Baltic League, in which “Kaunas” beat “Aušrina” of Jonava, then this year neither the Kaunas nor the Jonavis team even made it to the final four. “Kaunas” took fourth place in the regular season, but lost to “Tartu Ülikool” volleyball players in the quarterfinals, while “Aušrinė” took the penultimate ninth place.

The Riga RSU team became the Baltic League champion after defeating the Tartu Ülikool team in the final. Four Latvian and Estonian teams and two Lithuanian teams each played in the tournament.

Lithuanian men’s volleyball ambitions in the Baltic League are very low. This season, Lithuania was represented in the regional tournament only by the Gargždų “Amber” club, which took sixth place in the regular season, and lost to the Tartu “Bigbank” team in the quarter-final series.

Estonians have been ruling the volleyball tournament for a very long time. Since 2007, only Estonian clubs have become champions of the Baltic League, and this season TalTech from Tallinn continued the tradition by defeating the Bigbank team in the final.

Four Estonian, three Latvian and one Lithuanian team played in the Baltic Men’s Volleyball League.

Manual

After the season break, the Lithuanian team reached the final four of the Baltic Men’s Handball League. Klaipėda “Dragūnas” handball players traveled to the final tournament, having taken the third place in the final table of the Baltic League.

In the semi-final match, the Klaipėda team lost to the host of the final four, Pylva “Serviti”, but in the small final they defeated the “Viljandi” team.

Kaunas “Granitas” was eliminated from the Baltic League in the quarterfinals, Vilnius “Šviesa” took the penultimate seventh place in the regular season and did not enter the playoffs.

Eight teams played in the Baltic Men’s Handball League, which has shrunk compared to last season: three each from Lithuania and Estonia, two from Latvia. For the first time, Latvian champion Duobelės Tenax became the champion of the regional tournament after defeating Serviti, who had lost the title of winner, in the final.

This year, after a break of several seasons, a joint women’s handball tournament was held. In it, four Lithuanian teams fought against two Finnish, two Latvian and one Estonian team.

Although a few years ago it was even hard to imagine that the strongest Lithuanian women’s handball clubs could lose to teams from these countries, in the renewed Baltic League tournament, the victory was not celebrated by Lithuanians. Kauniainen’s GrIFK team from Finland took the first place. In the one-round tournament, GrIFK collected the same number of points as Vilnius “Tauras”, but the Finns surpassed the Vilnius team due to the victory in the match between them.

“Tauras” took second place, “Garliava” – third, Vilnius “Eglė” – fifth, Kaunas “Žalgiris” – sixth.

Hockey

Last year, the Lithuanian national team became the champion of the Baltic Women’s Ice Hockey League. This season, Lithuanians played worse. They finished third in the regular season and refused to participate in the playoffs due to the world championships.

Two Latvian clubs met in the finals, in which “Rīga” beat the Riga “Laima” ice hockey players. Five Latvian clubs, Lithuanian and Estonian national teams competed in the Baltic League.

The strongest Lithuanian men’s ice hockey teams who fought in the Latvian league were very rarely happy with victories. In this tournament, Lithuanian rivals were five clubs from Latvia and one from Estonia.

At the end of the regular season, all three Lithuanian teams lined up in the lower rows of the table: Kaunas took seventh place, Elektrėnai “Energija” took eighth place, Vilnius “Punks” took ninth place. Six teams entered the playoffs, so this stage took place without Lithuanians.

“Mogo” from Riga became the champion after defeating the Jelgava “Zemgale” team that lost the title in the final series.

2024-04-23 14:38:23

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