Staff Reporter
Windhoek-The opening tournament of the Fistball season got off to a thrilling start last Saturday at the Swakopmund Football Club, with Cohen Fistball Club (CFC 1) and Sport Klub Windhoek (SKW 2) winning and retaining their titles in their respective categories.
Officials of the Namibian Fistball Association (NFA) on Friday decided to spice things up and combined Categories A and B so teams had to play on a round robin basis.
For the final, after the preliminary round, the best two teams of the respective categories played against each other.
CFC 1 remained undefeated in all seven of their games. Gian Rudolph, who usually plays for MTV Vorsvelde in Germany, implemented his team’s strategy perfectly and made it difficult for SKW 1 and defending champions Swakopmund Fistball Club (SFC).
It was an evenly matched game with SKW 1 taking the lead several times, and at two minutes before the end, CFC 1 turned things around and won the match with a 3-point margin.
Kai Kiesewetter from SFC troubled the blue and white team several times and in the end only lost with a 4-point deficit to CFC 1. SKW 1 won all their remaining matches except for a draw against CFC 2.
The reserve team of CFC can count this as a great success as they have not won a match for the past one and a half year. CFC 2 was the victor in all the other matches except for the one against SKW 2 in Category B.
CFC 1 started the final on a high, snatching a quick lead of 5:0. Their counterparts SKW 1 seemed to wake up after that and put up a great fight. At halftime, CFC 1 led by 3 points.
Shortly after starting the second half, the SKW 1 attackers had a horrible series of 6 service mistakes in a row increasing the cushion of CFC 1 to 9 points. CFC 1 remained dominant as well as focused, and eventually won the outing by a comfortable 20:12
SKW 2 was in great form being the victors against CFC 2 in Category A. CFC 4 fielded three 11-year-olds who had lost all their matches, but who gained a great deal of experience throughout the tournament, which remains vital for further development.
SFC managed to threaten the lead of SKW 2 a few times before Michael Baas outplayed SFC with his experience. SKW won in the end with a 4-point margin.