Lauris Blaus | Photo: Jānis Martels
The Ogre team will play the second game of Pafbet’s Latvian-Estonian Basketball League (LIBL) quarter-finals series against Tallinn’s TalTech today, winning the semi-finals of VEF Riga. The match at Ogre Secondary School No. 1 will start at 5 pm and will be broadcast live on TV4.
On Wednesday, the Ogre players won the guests with the result 89:77 and reached 1-0 in the series with up to two victories. If the third game is needed, it will take place on April 5 in Tallinn. “Ogre” rose to fifth place at the end of the main event, suffering only two losses in the last 11 games. In the last three games, success over Tallinn’s Kalev / Cramo (76:64), Liepāja (90:76) and Rakvere’s Tarvas (95:75) has been celebrated.
The Tallinn team, in turn, took fourth place, ending the main event with six consecutive victories. After five successes against the teams at the bottom of the tournament table, Ventspils was defeated at 102:90 in the last game at home. In the regular championship, both teams won their field this season. At the beginning of October, the Tallinners celebrated the victory at home with 103:73, but at the end of January, the Ogre people revived in their square with 77:65.
It has already been reported that “VEF Rīga” won the “University of Tartu” / “Maks & Moorits” led by Nikolai Mazur 2-0 in the quarterfinals series. The game will also start at 5 pm, in which Tallinn “Kalev” / “Cramo”, led by Roberts Štelmahers and Akseļs Vairogs and represented by Ojārs Siliņš and Mārčs Vītols, will visit Parnu Sadam. Last year’s Unexpectedly won the first match with 67:60. In this pair, the opponent of the semi-finals will be determined in a series in which “Ventspils” concedes 0-1 to Hābneme’s “Viimsi”.
In the LIBL Main Event, the teams played a two-lap tournament. The top eight made it to the quarterfinals. The LIBL champions will be determined in the final four tournament, which will take place on April 9 and 10 at “Arena Riga”. The season will end with the playoffs of the Latvian and Estonian championships. In the Latvian championships “VEF Rīga” and “Ventspils” have guaranteed a place in the semi-finals, but in the quarter-finals series up to three victories in the games “Ogre” against “Liepāja” and “Valmiera Glass” / “Vidzeme University College” against “University of Latvia”.
14 teams – six Latvian teams – “VEF Rīga”, “Ogre”, “Ventspils”, “Valmiera Glass” / “Vidzeme University”, “University of Latvia” and “Liepāja” participate in the LIBL championship in the season of 2021/22, as also eight Estonian teams – Tallinn “Kalev” / ”Cramo”, Rapla “Avis Utilitas”, “Parnu Sadam”, “University of Tartu” / “Maks & Moorits”, Rakvere “Tarvas”, Tallinn “Kalev”, “TalTech” / Optibet and Häme’s Viimsi.
