Monarchs run the Bears close

REPORT Friday 14th June 2024, 9:56pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs

The Stellar Monarchs put up a pretty good display at the Ecco Arena tonight and provided the majority of race winners before going down 49-41, a tally which doesn't do justice to how close a match it was.

Team manager John Campbell said "It's disappointing having battled so hard to keep the scores close that we could not finish off the job. Josh Pickering was disappointed and always feels he can score better, but to be honest there were others we needed more points from."

Captain Paco Castagna agreed saying "I was disappointed in the end because I felt we could have won. We just had a couple of last places too many. Both Kye and I had been suffering from flu and Kye was lacking energy, I think we are good enough at home to take the bonus point when Redcar come to us. When we all click, we will be very dangerous."

With three heats remaining there were just 2 points in it, but the home side got the better of heats 13 and 15 to clinch victory. In between captain Castagna won heat 14, but that's not the only heat he is winning these days!

Monarchs' top three were excellent, with three race wins each for Justin Sedgmen and Paco Castagna, while Josh Pickering was one of the few riders in the meeting who was able to pick up any points from the back. He caught Danny King on the line in heat 13 for second place but even he could not peg back Wright and King in heat 15.

Josh had started the meeting by making the gate in heat 1, but it was stopped when Fredriksen came down on the first bend. Josh missed it the second time and we were four down after two heats.

Heat 2 did feature a good second by Dayle Wood, who had his best match for Monarchs and picked up three well earned points. Lasse Fredriksen won a heat, a Monarchs 5-1 in heat 5, and also helped Pickering to a 4-2 in heat 11, but for a successful outcome they needed more points from Kye Thomson and Connor Coles.

These two were often close to gaining good positions but came up just short.

Full Result Details