Berwick Jewson Bandits regained the Border Trophy in emphatic style, repelling a strong Workington fightback to maintain their perfect start to the season.
The aggregate score over two legs was 103-77 and, on the day, Bandits won 47-43 at Workington, but they had one hand on the trophy following the 22-point first-leg victory in the Borders.
Danyon Hume beat home skipper Craig Cook in Heat One for the second night in a row, followed by a 5-1 from Freddy Hodder and Bastian Borke in Heat Two, Comets fans may have feared another big defeat.
Instead, led by Antti Vuolas who shrugged off a pointless first ride to top score with 11 points, and with Australian teenager Tate Zischke also improving as the afternoon went on, the home side steadily chipped away.
They levelled the meeting with successive heat advantages in Heat Nine and Heat Ten inspired by Vuolas and his fellow debutant.
Workington, in fact, provided five successive heat winners and seemed to have the momentum going into the closing three heats, but Lewis Kerr firmly slammed the door on any possibility of a win by storming to victory in Heat 13, Berwick skipper Rory Schlein riding the wide line perfectly to secure a 5-1 for the visitors.
Drew Kemp split the home pairing of Claus Vissing and Sam McGurk in the penultimate heat and Kerr killed any lingering doubt with another storming start to Heat 15, Schlein tucking in behind the highly-impressive Vuolas before stepping forward to become the first Berwick captain to lift a trophy in many years.
Stewart Dickson, Berwick’s team manager, said: “It is a satisfying way to end what has by and large been a good weekend for us. Every rider has recorded at least one heat win over the 30 heats and we had to dig deep at times against Workington.”
Dickson wants more and said: “There are also a few things to work on but we now go into the BSN Series with both momentum and confidence.”
Berwick open the BSN Series against Glasgow Tigers at Shielfield Park on Saturday.
Comets: Craig Cook 7+1, Tate Zischke 7+1, Antti Vuolas 11, Claus Vissing 8, Troy Batchelor 7, Sam McGurk 2, Celina Liebmann 1+1
Bandits: Lewis Kerr 11, Danyon Hume 6+1, Jye Etheridge 8, Drew Kemp 4+1, Rory Schlein 11+1, Freddy Hodder 4+1, Bastian Borke 3+2
PICTURE: The Border Trophy winning team captured by Taz McDougall
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