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Elite League B fixture : Friday 30th May 2008 @ 8pm
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The Hammers pulled off a comfortable victory against their league rivals Poole in this, a battle for supremacy near the top of the Elite League table.
The Pirates looked fierce on paper but failed to deliver, relying almost exclusively on the efforts of 2007 Hammer Krzytztof Kasprzak, who was in superb form.
The Pole received some backing near the top end of the scorechart from Chris Holder and Davey Watt - but their long tail caught up with them as they were statistically outscored at reserve by a single point to the Hammers' 20.
Full credit to the Hammers, who were certainly fired up to do well and buoyed by the appearance of Andreas Jonsson just six days after his high speed horror crash in Gothenburg.
The Swede inflicted what was to prove Kasprzak's only defeat of the night in heat one, but he did so in emphatic fashion, breaking his own track record with a new low of 56.8 seconds.
There were plenty of other plus points on another evening with no holds barred racing as Ricky Kling put the disappointing performance against Eastbourne two weeks ago behind him to rack up a paid eight points haul - one race of which included victory over Holder in heat seven.
A brilliant race between Leigh Lanham, Joonas Kylmakorpi and Poole's Freddie Eriksson in heat eight, which resulted in a near blanket finish that went the way of the Hammers, moved the home side ten points up. Davey Watt's quick appearance on a tactical ride in heat nine failed to deliver, though, when Kylmakorpi continued his great run of form to slip inside exiting the second corner to nullify the race.
Kasprzak finished with a brace of wins, including two over Jonsson, but this fine team effort from the Hammers continues to hold them in good position as the mid summer schedule kicks into gear.
 Related Link: Hammers hit a high in top half table clash : Match Statistics
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