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On Saturday, in the 34th round of the NFKA "A Lyga" matches, Panevėžys "Ekranas" secured silver medals by defeating Vilnius "Vėtra" at home 1-0 in a battle for second place in the championship. In other matches, the champions "Kaunas" secured the title by defeating the cup winner "Sūduva" 2-0 at home, "Atlantas" and "Žalgiris" defeated the bottom teams "Šilutė" and "Nevėžis" 2-0, while "Vilnius" also won against crisis-hit "Šiauliai" away with the same margin. In the most interesting match of the round on Saturday afternoon, the two teams fighting for silver medals - the recently dethroned champions Panevėžys "Ekranas" and Vilnius "Vėtra", which had hopes to improve from third position, met. The panevėžys secured a narrow victory and clinched the silver medals, with the only goal of the match coming from Ekranas defender Donatas Petrauskas after just over half an hour from a quick counterattack. The fact that the team is not willing to share points with opponents was also demonstrated by the already crowned champions "Kaunas", who defeated Marijampolė "Sūduva" at home. Kaunas coach Eugenijus Riabovas allowed some key players to rest and gave opportunities to younger players, but in the 16th minute, Bosnian Edin Pehličius put the hosts ahead with a repeat strike, and despite "Sūduva" missing opportunities to equalize towards the end of the match, the victory was sealed for "Kaunas" with a goal from Brazilian Rafael. The failure of "Sūduva" allowed Vilnius "Žalgiris" to secure fourth place, as they achieved a convincing victory against the team that rose from the bottom of the table in the last round, "Šilutė". After a scramble in the penalty area, Igoris Morinas scored the first goal for Žalgiris from close range, and in the second half, another Žalgiris forward Tadas Labukas scored the second goal from 5 meters after a beautiful Vilnius attack. Having won the match, "Žalgiris" now leads "Sūduva" by three points and maintains a four-point advantage over Klaipėda "Atlantas", who also achieved an easy victory by the same scoreline of 2-0 against the absolute outsider Kėdainiai "Nevėžis". The goals for the winners were scored by the legionnaires Duško Vraneševičius and Maksimas Morozovas. The most intriguing match was in Šiauliai, where the local team, playing poorly recently, faced the "Vilnius" club, which was on the opposite side of the spectrum in terms of form. The difference in the teams' form was reflected in the result - in the 20th minute, the visitors from the capital were ahead thanks to Nigerian Akanni Wasiu, and in the second half, the team's attacking leader Aivaras Laurišas added the second goal. "Vilnius" not only increased their lead over "Šiauliai" to 4 points but also regained hope to fight for fourth place. Until the end of the championship, there are two full rounds in November and three postponed matches that will be played on Tuesday. In Kaunas, the struggling "Nevėžis" will host the rising "Vilnius", in Klaipėda "Atlantas" will seek to take points from the no longer motivated "Kaunas", and in Vilnius, "Vėtra", trying to secure third place, will face "Ekranas" for the second time in a row.
