Royal Léopold and Atlètic Terrassa’s men both recorded big wins over top-level rivals while Club de Campo’s women opened up a lead at the top of their table as the EHL FINAL4 clubs aim to hit their stride at the right time.
For Léo, they produced an outstanding comeback against La Gantoise to leap-frog their Flandrian opponent and move top of their section. La Gantoise started brilliantly, leading 2-0 after 12 minutes thanks to goals from Leandro Tolini and Charles Masson.
But the Bruxellois fought back and were in the game when Tom Boon netted from the penalty spot in the 33rd minute. Arthur Verdussen equalised in the 56th minute and the winner came five minutes later when Boon set up Tom Degroote. Goalkeeper Romain Henet preserved that narrow 3-2 lead for top spot in Pool A, backing up their win over Dragons a week earlier.
For La Gantoise, it was a second successive defeat since the end of the winter break having gone unbeaten before Christmas. They still have a four-point gap, though, to third place Dragons following their 1-0 win over Racing.
In Pool B, Waterloo Ducks beat Beerschot 4-3 while Orée defeated Leuven 7-3. The WatDucks will assure themselves of a top two spot in the group with one more win from their last four games; Orée, meanwhile, are eight points above Leuven in the gap between second and third.
In Spain, Atlèti won a rip-roaring contest over table-toppers Club de Campo 5-4. They raced into a 3-0 lead in the first quarter with Joan Tarres, Marc Escude and Pau Cunill all on the mark.
Campo, though, bossed the second quarter and were level at 3-3 on the half hour via Alvaro Tello, setting up a lively second half.
But another Cunill goal and another from Marc Bolto put them in the clear at 5-3 with six minutes to go with Jose Maria Basterra’s last minute goal too late to change things.
The result sees Atlètic Terrassa move to within one point of Club de Campo at the top of the table. In the other top-four clash, Club Egara drew 1-1 with Real Club de Polo, a result which denied Egara the chance to move level with Campo on 37 points.
Campo’s women, meanwhile, thrashed RS Tenis 11-1 with two goals each for Laura Barrios, Lucia Abajo, Carmen Cano and Bea Perez.
Nearest rivals Junior FC fell to a shock defeat to ninth place Real Sociedad 3-2, falling three points off the pace with a game extra played.