Monthly Archives: August 2014

First round of play down series vs Karlskoga

The Sharks were heading for Karlskoga for the first round of play down series. In 2013 the managed to win the third and deciding game away in Alby. Alby eventually lost to Sölvesborg who took Albys spot in the Elitseries.
Karlskoga almost managed to avoid a playdown spot but Leksand lost one game to Sölvesborg in the last round and forced Karlskoga to the first playdown round instead of to the play offs for the cup.

Althought he forecast projected light rain, the weather decided against. It was pouring at times and when the light rain took over it was just enough to keep the field wet. Since the teams were running out of days to play the series, they did all they could to get at least one game going. The field in Karlskoga is located on a hill of rocks and sand, perfect to let the water go quickly. That gave the Karlskoga team some hopes to get a game going despite of the puddles on the field, if it just would stop rain.
The teams were in luck. Some time after 1600 it was decided that they should get a game going and around 1700 the Umpire called out “Play ball!”.

Karlskoga Pitcher Parker Talbert was phenominal on the hill the six innings he were allowed to pitch. Niklas Hellerstedt started for Gothenburg and Christian Göttlisher took over after Niklas got in trouble after a few innings. The Karlskoga was up 14-1 after six innings. Gothenburg was forced to score at least four runs in top seven to keep the game alive. Some time there, Karlskoga did some substitutions, removing two solid players from the line up adding younger players. Gothenburg moved Patric Laffin from catching to center field adding Lundborg for catching. Khazal took over third from Weidolf. Previously Ted Bratsberg substituted Niklas Ekström on first base.
The Sharks rose to the occasion and gave Karlskoga pitching a hard time scoring just enough runs to keep the game alive and continued to score two more runs in the eight! Gothenburg entered top eight with five runs for and 14 against. Karlskoga was forced to a pitcher change when the coach for the second time entered the field in top eight with two outs and left the ball to Karlskoga veteran Kent Karlsson with Karlskoga ahead .
The Sharks got the upper hand on Karlsson directly in the top ninth by producing solid hits from the burning hot Gothenburg bats. Karlskoga was still ahead eight runs but the Sharks wasn’t interested in giving up. The first five at bats all scored. Fredrik Lundborg finally got to third with two outs, representing the tying run after a phenominal comeback by the Sharks. The go-ahead-run was on second represented by Göttlisher after 10 at bats for the inning. Karlskoga managed two outs during the inning. Kahzal was at the plate for the second time of the inning and everyone was ready for the miracle! It was in some sense really well deserved after picking up the game almost tying it despite they were down 13 runs not even three innings ago. In some other sense, Karlskoga deserved to walk off with the win in game one. Kahzal hits a groundball to third which manages the paly to first for the game. So very close for an awesome comeback.

The Sharks lost the second game of the series 12-2 that was eventually played when the rain calmed down on Sunday. This puts the Sharks in the second round of the down series.

The Sharks must now play either Botkyrka or Rättvik for a second chance to stay in the Eliteseries. The rain has caused some trouble for the commissioner of finding a way to play all games. The current idea is to play the qualifying games on Sunday. Actually, it looks like whatever scenario we’re looking at, we’re playing ball in Shark Park on Sunday! See you there for games that means a lot for the future of the ball club.

The history repeats itself

The Gothenburg Sharks will have to face Karlskoga Bats once again the upcoming weekend. The teams met at Shark Park just more than a week ago in a double header where Karlskoga Bats won both games. Even though the numbers were greatly in favor of Karlskoga the games were closer than the numbers were. Gothenburg will travel to Karlskoga for the three game series to directly stay in the Elitseries the upcoming weekend! Two games on Saturday and possibly a third and directly deciding game on Sunday.

Karlskoga played in the other end of the series just last year and lost the cup in the fourth game vs Stockholm. In 2012, Karlskoga went all the way and won the cup in the fourth game of the five game series vs Leksand.

The loser of the series will have to face the winner of the second division play offs in a three game series. The winner will play in the Eliteseries 2015.

The Karlskoga Bats are of course favorites to win the first series. Stockholm was also the favorite to win vs Sölvesborg to go into the final the past weekend. Stockholm was down 6-5 starting bottom ninth in the third and directly decisive game and managed to turn it around to win! Sölvesborg was just inches from giving Stockholm two losses on the same weekend. That was almost twice as many as Stockholm lost in the entire season! The Stockholm Monarchs showed good morale and turned the game around and earned a very well deserved spot in the final vs Leksand after only one loss in the regular season.

The Gothenburg Sharks played Alby Stars in the playdown last year to stay in the series. Those games were away at Seagull Park where the Sharks almost killed the series in the second of the games. The second game went into extra innings and then the darkness took over and had to be taken up again prior to a possible game three. The game two of the series was taken up again the day after but the Sharks failed to capitalize on the extra nights sleep losing the game in the twelfth inning. That was just pure fuel to the Sharks bats which caught fire. The Alby Stars had to resign after eight innings losing the game 5-18. The Alby Stars eventually lost to Sölvesborg who took over the Alby Stars spot in the Elitseries.

The Sharks have been into a playdown before. They came out on top. Will the history repeat itself once again? The odds are against, the players are for! Go Sharks!