Skara HF had 2–0 in matches and it was set for a gold party in the small Västergötland town, which had never previously celebrated a national championship gold.
But the lilac-clad home team was afflicted with gold fever and it took more than eight minutes before Skara scored its first goal. Veteran Sofia Berndtsson admitted that there were nerves involved during the shaky match opening.
Yes, I would say so. It's not strange, really. It's a situation we've never been in before. We're playing for the national championship gold today, she said in the halftime interview on Handbollsligan's broadcast.
At that point, Skara had narrowed an early 1–5 deficit to 9–10. Directly in the second half, the home team was level for the first time, 10–10.
But then Sävehof pulled away again – and this time Skara couldn't recover.
A bit disappointing. We had hoped for something else, but we didn't deserve it today, says Rasmus Overby, who took over the coaching job in Skara earlier in the season.
Sävehof has a total of 17 national championship golds, including the last three, and needs two wins to prevent Skara from joining the gold club.
The fourth final is played in Partille on Thursday. A potential deciding fifth match in Skara is played on Sunday.
