The packed Kisahalli crowd celebrated the Finnish championship for the first time in 25 years.
Seagulls–Kauhajoki 91–66.
The Seagulls are champions with a 4–2 victory.
Finally The Seagulls got what they wanted. The buzzer of the Kisahalli in Töölö started the raucous basketball championship celebration, when Kauhajoki Karhubasket fell 91–66.
Six final matches were required for the gold, until the Seagulls’ goal was fulfilled with a 4–2 victory.
The championship returned to Helsinki after a 25-year hiatus. It was about time, many who follow the sport might say.
Field hugged each other, and especially From Timo Heino. He is the Nestor of the team and a sure success who has played the longest career.
“Good feelings. There are no words to describe it. An incredible team and hard games. Fortunately, we got one away win. That helped here,” Heinonen said as the victory chants played.
Lassi Nikkarinen was voted best of the match and René Rougeau as the best player of the finals. The choices were right, though Jeffrey Carroll too the choice would not have been wrong.
One could imagine the championship game to be blinded by excitement, but anything but. The Seagulls started off relaxed and so relaxed that you wouldn’t have thought it was the most important match of the season.
Perhaps the tension and pressure squeezed the Bearbasket players into a back lock, when even the easy throws did not succeed.
The home team blew the tension out of the match in the very first minutes. The point gap started to grow and grow.
Before at the break, the Seagulls were already leading by a whopping 27 points. Home team trio René Rougeau, Jeffrey Carroll and Antti Kanervo was in his element. When added to this Zena Edosomwani strong roaring in the vicinity of both baskets, the solution began to send and the atmosphere to fly.
Kanervo can throw from close and far. In the sixth final, he played his best match as the Seagulls built a solution. From Kanervo’s essence, you could see how the pressure wore off when two important three-pointers sank.
“We all came into the game with a wild heart and it was an extremely good game from myself and the whole team,” Kanervo said. He played in the finals for the fourth time in his career and finally won. All final losses came in Joensuu’s Kataja.
“I think we were already better in the last game, but we couldn’t win it. Kauhajoki is a good team, but we were better.”
On the other at half-time, the game was played until the clock went out. Seagulls didn’t think they would lose the lead and Karhubasket didn’t think they would catch up.
The excitement couldn’t bear to return to Kisahalli, though Jay Crockett increased the reduction to ten points. The prizes for this match had been awarded earlier.
Seagulls the victory brought a large number of new Finnish champions, but Timo Heinonen, 41, has been waiting for this the longest.
Heinonen played in the finals in 2010, when Torpan Pojat reached the final for the last time. That’s when Heinonen was left with a silver medal, which changed to gold immediately 13 years later.
“Yes, this brings compensation. This is what we are trying to achieve here, and we finally achieved it,” Heinonen said.
The Seagulls had received additional capacity for the stands in the Kisahalli’s corridors and increased the number of spectators to a touch over 1,500. And it was heard when the hall was full to the walls.
Koris fans stood in many rows on the long sides of the hall, and some just had to listen to the game behind each other’s backs. The final got the audience it deserved.
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