After opening the season with a loss at home, the Vikings are moving on to the second round of the Superserien, this time facing a more familiar foe in the Örebro Black Knights. In 2023 the teams went head-to-head twice in the Scandinavian Cup, with the Black Knights winning both matchups (the second by a score of 37-7). Örebro lost their first game of the season to the Stockholm Mean Machines, so this matchup features two teams hungry for their first win of the season.
Key matchups heading into the game
10 Stenseng
After being gashed on the ground to the tune of 148 yards on 16 carries, an average of 9.25 yards/attempt, the Vikings defense has a great opportunity to bounce back against the Black Knights. In their game against Stockholm, the Black Knights totaled -11 yards rushing on the game. No Black Knights player even recorded a rush attempt in that game. The Black Knights are unlikely to keep this up, but how will running backs #0 Theodor Asprou, #20 Jonathan Eklund, #30 Filip Korhonen, and # 48 Lemar Virgo fare against the linebacker trio of #1 Will Sewell, #10 Sigurd Stenseng, and #44 Jørn Valaker?
21 Gunleiksrud
A key area of improvement for the Vikings has to be pass defense, especially going against Black Knights QB #12 Trevor Vasey who put up 324 yards with 3 touchdowns on a 69% completion percentage. Vasey spread the ball around to receivers #16 Anton Enkvist (7/119), #14 Elliot Hammar (6/86/1TD), and #1 Johannes Lindéus (6/56/1TD). Lindéus in particular is a well known player to the Vikings, scoring multiple long touchdowns in previous games. Safeties #11 Håvard Gundesø and #21 Gaute Gunleiksrud make up the back end of a Vikings defense tasked with stopping a pass happy Black Knights offense.
23 Thach
Will the Vikings offense keep humming? Two Vikings receivers stood out in the first game of the season, #3 Matthew Snawder (4/75/2TD) and #13 Elias Moland-Wulff (2/76), providing explosive plays. They will be going against #4 Cewin Eriksson (5 tackles, 1 INT) and #19 Philip Batista Gröndahl (4.5 tackles), two players that got busy making tackles in their first game of the year. The Vikings run game also deserves some recognition, especially young RB #23 Anthony Thach who averaged 8.6 yards/carry.
This second game of the year will see the Vikings traveling to Örebro to play in Berhn Arena. The game kicks off at 15.00 – Sunday, April 14th. For Vikings faithful, the game can be live streamed here: SWE3 – Vikings @ Black Knights