Belarusian champions Meshkov Brest have on Tuesday evening in Skopje managed to make a huge step towards qualifying for this season’s final tournament defeating reigning champs Vardar 32:30. With two more regular-season rounds left ahead of them, Cadenas and his players are just a step away from booking F4 ticket for themselves. 

Meshkov were able to control the bigger part of the game but weren’t able to seal the deal until the very final minute of the encounter. Guests opened the match better opening the gap to two (2:4) a little over five minutes into the encounter as they were able to fully control the rhythm of the encounter playing efficiently in attack and solid in defense. Both teams were making some mistakes but guests were able to maintain three-goal lead all the way until final few minutes of the first in which ‘Red&Black’ managed to narrow the gap with Ivan Cupic bringing them to only minus one (16:17) only a few seconds prior to the half-time buzzer. 

Belarusians opened the second half better as well and were able to keep the gap open until ten minutes into the second (20:23) when Vardar shifted into a higher gear, especially on the defensive side of the court, as a result of which they managed to level the result at 23:23 and even taking their first lead in the second with 25:24 and less than 15 minutes left on the clock.

Match was narrow all the way until the final few minutes when Ivan Pesic grabbed probably his most important save of the night which later provided Darko Djukic with a chance to put his team up by one (30:31) with less than half a minute left to play. Vardar had a chance to take at least a point but Kristopans made a bad pass and Djukic used the opportunity to score on an empty net, as hosts tried to score from a powerplay action, sealing the deal for his team in this one. 

Petar Djordjic finished the match with eight for guests while Sime Ivic added six. Ivan Pesic grabbed 12 saves. Timur Dibirov and Stas Skube netted six each for Vardar.