Performance rankings - 10th to 16th August 2020

Hyvinkää storm back into the top 8 with key wins over IPV and KPL


There was one result last week that changed as a result of an ineligible player. This has a significant impact on teams at the top and bottom of the performance rankings, so I have had to apply a bit of thought to how to deal with the Siilinjärvi v Koskenkorva result...


1st Hyvinkään Tahko

Hyvinkää needed a big performance to lift themselves up into the playoff spots and last week they certainly got that. With 2 wins from 2 games, scoring 5 out of a possible 6 points, this was a solid week for Tahko - especially when you realise that one win came against KPL. Pihkala is known for its run scoring potential and so far this season Hyvinkää had struggled to stop their opponents exploiting this and have the most runs conceded in the league. Last week however they managed to power past both KPL and IPV with Juha Korhonen’s 7 RBI against IPV and Teemu Nikkanen’s perfect 8/8 at moving the point runner, including 4 RBI against KPL. Hyvinkää have some tough games coming up, including Joensuu on Tuesday this week, so they will have to dig deep if they want to feature in the next rankings.


2nd Joensuun Maila

Joensuu slip to 2nd in the rankings due to the fact that they struggled against local rivals Kitee. Despite taking the win, Kitee claimed a vital point against the resigning champions. Joensuu are still dominating their other games and continue to be favourites for the championship this year. 


3rd Koskenkorvan Urheilijat****

Now this position has a marker next to it - because of the SiiPe result being overturned, KoU gained another 3 points despite being firmly beaten in the game itself. 4th place in the rankings is KPL; however I felt that Koskenkorva deserved to be in 3rd rather than KPL after their scoring contest win over Sotkamo and the fact that KPL lost to Hyvinkää. I wrote a post about the dramatic turn around of Koskenkorva’s fortunes and it will be interesting to see if this can be sustained and they become serious challengers for the top 8.


Worst performance - Pattijoen Urheilijat, Raahe ****

It is perhaps a little unfair to give Koskenkorva the benefit of the doubt and do the same to SiiPe here, but the result is that PattU drops to last place in the table. When i consider the performances of PattU and SiiPe side by side, I am more impressed by Siilinjärvi and therefore Pattijoki continues to sit at the bottom of the performance rankings. PattU’s 2-1s victory over SiiPe was their first win since 31st July and comes at a time when they are outside of the top 8 with a number of teams coming into form. 


Worthy of note - Siilinjärven Pesis

If the Koskenkorva result is ignored for SiiPe then they are firmly bottom of the performance rankings; however they did perform strongly against Koskenkorva and they also claimed a point against PattU last week. Based on the performances therefore it wouldn’t seem right to place them at the bottom of the rankings, but the team are still rooted to the bottom of the league table.

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