COPENHAGEN - The team Varde BK has won its first team title in the Danish competition called the "Søren Søgaard Premier League." The league finals were decided in a Final four event in Copenhagen. The four teams in the final competition were BK Grøndal, Varde BK, CCB and Vejle BK, which had qualified from the regular season. Varde BK won the final match beating BK Grøndal 6-2. Allan Schrøder was the star player in the final match with over a 3 average.
After two semifinals, where BK Grøndal won 8-0 against Vejle BK and Varde BK defeated CCB 6-2, for the fourth year running, the deciding game for the championship was a match between BK Grøndal and Varde BK. This time, after being runner-up to BK Grøndal for the last three years, Varde BK succeeded in winning the Danish title.
The foundation of the victory was laid by Allan Schrøder (Danish champion 2017), who played a world class match against Jacob Haack-Sørensen. Schrøder started the encounter with 9-0-8-7, and was leading at the break 24-3 in four innings. He finished the match in 12 innings (42-20) and played to a 3.500 average. That is a new Danish record for a match to 42 points.
BK Grøndal was forced to win the last three matches and they could not do that.
The results:
On the first table, Dion Nelin lost to Glenn Hofman 49-50 in 33 innings. Hofman needed three match balls with the yellow ball, and Nelin missed some chances for a draw or for a possible win. Tonny Carlsen lost to Thomas Andersen 48-50 in 38 innings after leading 25-14 at the break. Only Brian Knudsen could win a match for BK Grøndal. He defeated Brian Zola Hansen 42-40 in 26 innings.
The Varde victory resulted in great joy for the participating players, accompanying fans and teamleader Kim Krogh Pedersen.
Varde BK is the twelfth club which have won the championship in Denmark and is the fifth club from the Jutland area after Vejle BK, Randers BK, ABK 31 Aalborg and Fredericia. Both Varde BK and BK Grøndal have qualified for the Europe Cup later this year in Porto.
The four teams were represented by the following players:
BK Grøndal: Dion Nelin, Tonny Carlsen, Brian Knudsen and Jacob Haack-Sørensen
Varde BK: Glenn Hofman, Thomas Andersen, Brian Zola Hansen and Allan Schrøder
CCB: Lars Dunch, René Hendriksen, Carsten Hjøllund and Hans Laursen
Vejle BK: Martin Olesen, Allan Keith, Michael Toudahl and Michael Malberg.
The Varde team after winning the first Danish title