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.