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Four postponed matches of the 10th round took place on Wednesday in the Latvian championship. The sixth victory in a row was helped to win by the goalkeeper from Lithuania, who has been playing very productively this season - after his goal in the last minute, the students of Benjamin Zelkevičius defeated Daugavpils "Ditton" and rose to second place.
On Saturday, September 16, in the 21st round match, "Metalurgs" defeated one of their main rivals "Skonto" from Riga at home with a score of 3-1, with Nerijus Astrauskas scoring one goal, so before the matches on Wednesday, Liepaja's team was only two points behind the club from the Latvian capital.
Since "Skonto" unexpectedly lost 0-2 to Daugavpils "Dinaburg" club, "Metalurgs" had the opportunity to overtake their rivals and led against "Ditton" 15 minutes in, when after Mindaugas Kalonas' pass from the edge, Jevgenijus Postnikovas and Denis Ivanovas converted a penalty kick.
After playing for an hour, the hosts' player Vladimir Skokov managed to equalize the score, but the decisive word was said by D.Miceika, who received a pass from Aleksandrs Katasonovs in the penalty area, turned around and scored the winning goal. This was the 10th goal of the Lithuanian in the championship. In addition to D. Miceika, Vadimas Petrenko and M. Kalonas played the whole match, N. Astrauskas was replaced by Artūras Rimkevičius in the 64th minute, and Tomas Tamošauskas played until the 78th minute.
This victory allowed "Metalurgs" to overtake "Skonto" in the standings, but the league leader is still the club "Ventspils", which defeated "Jūrmala" team at home with a score of 1-0. During the whole match, Igoris Stukalinas and Deimantas Bička represented the hosts, while Gintaras Staučė defended the guests' goal.
With six rounds remaining until the end of the championship, "Ventspils" still has an eight-point advantage over "Metalurgs", but has played more matches. In addition, the Ventspils team still has a match against "Skonto" to come, and both leaders will face each other in the 26th round match on October 21 in Liepaja.
Standings: (position, team, played, won, lost, drawn, goals, points) 1. "Ventspils" 19 16 4 1 41-12 52 2. Liepaja "Metalurgs" 20 13 5 2 50-15 44 3. Riga "Skonto" 22 13 4 5 43-16 43 4. Daugavpils "Ditton" 21 8 7 6 26-23 31 5. "Jūrmala" 22 8 4 10 29-30 28 6. Daugavpils "Dinaburg" 20 8 3 9 24-25 27 7. "Riga" 22 3 3 16 12-48 12 8. Rezekne "Dižvanagi" 22 0 2 20 7-63 2
Top scorers: 1. Jurgis Kalns ("Jūrmala") - 12 goals 2-3. Mihails Miholaps ("Skonto"), Girts Karlsons ("Metalurgs") - 11 each 4. Darius Miceika ("Metalurgs") - 10 5. Aleksandrs Katasonovs ("Metalurgs") - 9
