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| Amazed VSU secure safety with game to go |
Against all the odds, a Viking South Utsira side that had won just two league matches all season with only three left to go have secured their Division 1a survival with a game to spare, by winning two more back-to-back.
Last week's surprise 2-0 victory at promotion-chasing JAV Idols was followed by a critical, nervy clash against relegation rivals Kalkbrottet FC at Ragnar Rock this Tuesday, which the two teams started two places but just one point apart in 5th and 7th. Meanwhile Spearwives of Ygritte, who began the day only two places further ahead in 4th, were hosting 6th-placed Ansvarsfulla Divor in another equally crucial and potentially decisive clash.
The game on Utsira got underway with the frustration of seeing a great young late-season academy prospect in Irene Hervig getting badly injured just three minutes in. Fellow 19-year-old Novalie Austrheim was rushed into play to support Anneke Hovland up front, though, and the disappointment was largely forgotten amid the euphoria of Hovland crashing the Blood Eagles into the lead with a real piledriver on the stroke of halftime -- with an assist from another recent teenage arrival, 17-year-old midfielder Isabel Øhrn.
An almost equally nasty injury to the visitors' lone striker Ana Maria Pedras on the hour further swung the momentum Viking's way, and they held on comfortably enough in the end for the three points that guaranteed Kalkbrottet could not catch them. News then filtered through from the Fist of the First Women ground that Maeve Croagh's strike right at the start of the second half had similarly been enough for Ygritte to hold off Ansvarfulla, leaving the latter also four points behind VSU with just one game left.
It means, startlingly, the presumed-crucial closing clash at the Fist between the Spearwives and Vikings will in fact be nothing more than a dead rubber, with both sides unexpectedly safe already. Manager VelvetAndroid instead can concentrate fully on juggling as many as possible of his squad's 10 (!!) teenagers that still need the experience into the final-day side, and then look forward to the close season.
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