King’s Lynn Stars v Leicester Lions

Report

KING’S Lynn are off the mark in the ROWE Motor Oil Premiership with a narrow 46-44 win over Leicester in a meeting which went down to the wire.

The Stars had to overcome an early eight-point deficit after two 5-1s from the Max Fricke/Luke Becker combination for the Lions, and the home side hit further trouble when Ben Cook crashed out of Heat 10 and suffered a wrist injury.

But Chris Harris again made a crucial difference at reserve, racing in each of the last five heats to score 16+2 from seven rides, and he and skipper Nicolai Klindt shared Heat 15 to edge the hosts to victory.

Klindt scored 11, being just beaten to the line by Fricke in that final race, with the Lions captain collecting 11+3 whilst Ryan Douglas won three races but missed out in the decider.

Stars manager Rob Lyon said: “A win is a win, I guess. We’ve got two points on the board, which is good.

“But ironically, we probably lost more points tonight than we did here against Belle Vue and we’ve still managed to win on this occasion.

“We’re a little bit too inconsistent at times so we need to try and iron those out for the next one.”

Fricke said: “The track was tricky tonight so all-in-all to come away from home and only lose by a small margin is positive, we take the positives from wherever we can.

“I felt pretty average all night to be honest but in that last one I felt a little bit better and had a little bit of speed.

“Everyone is riding well so we just need to keep that up and keep building.”

KING’S LYNN 46: Chris Harris 16+2, Nicolai Klindt 11, Jan Kvech 6+1, Richard Lawson 6, Niels-Kristian Iversen 5+2, Ben Cook 2+1, Ashton Boughen 0.
LEICESTER 44: Max Fricke 11+3, Ryan Douglas 9, Luke Becker 8, Sam Masters 6, Kyle Howarth 5, Sam Hagon 3+3, Drew Kemp 2.

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Photo credit: DEREK LEADER