Buoyed by their Match Day Four semifinal playoff win, two-time Olympian Dylan Carter, and his London Roar teammates will aim to cement their spot in the four-team International Swimming League (ISL) final when Match Day Five of the places splashes off Thursday.
The two-day Match Day semifinal playoffs featuring London Roar, Energy Standard, LA Current, and DC Trident takes place on Thursday and Friday at the Pieter Van Den Hoogenband Stadium, Eindhoven, Holland while the sixth and final Match Day involving defending champions Cali Condors, Toronto Titans, Aqua Centurions, and Iron comes off on November 27 and 28.
At the end of the semifinals, the top four teams will advance to the finals in Eindhoven, carded for December 3 and 4 at the same venue.
Last weekend, the 25-year-old Carter won a gold medal as well as a silver and two bronze medals to take his season haul to 16 (six gold, six silver and four bronze) as the London Roar registered an impressive win on Match Day Four with 534.5 points from 39 events, while Cali Condors ended second with 474.5, LA Current third with 438.5, and Team Iron, fourth with 324.5.
And with one match left for each team starting on Thursday, the trio of Energy Standard, London Roar, and Cali Condors are in a three-way tie at the top of the standings with seven points each from two of three semifinal match days and are almost certain of being in the four-team final while fourth-placed LA Current has six points.
The quartet of Toronto Titans (five), Aqua Centurions (three), DC Trident (three), and Team Iron (two) complete the table with one Match Day left for each team.
As per competition rules, four points are awarded to the overall Match Day winners, while the second spot gets three, third place gets two, and the cellar-placed team, one, meaning the London Roar will be certain of a spot in the final with a top-three finish of the four teams, something which seems very impossible not to accomplish.
So far in the second stage of the 2021 ISL, Carter has won a total of seven medals, inclusive of two relay gold medals, three silver and two bronze.
On Saturday, Carter won gold in the 4x100 metres freestyle relay, and a silver in the 4x100m medley relay, while on Sunday he added a bronze in both the 100m freestyle and 4x100m mixed medley relay events.
The four medals followed his return of one gold and two silver medals in the second Match Day semifinal playoff in which his team was edged out by LA Current for the top spot.
When the preliminary ten rounds of competition concluded last month in Naples, Italy, Carter, T&T's first-ever Commonwealth Games swimming medal winner, had bagged nine medals in total, four gold, three silver, and two bronze which helped his team to 13 points from a maximum of 16 and third spot on the ten-club standings to be among the automatic semifinal qualifiers.
2021 ISL PLAYOFFS MATCH RESULTS
MATCH 1:
1 Cali Condors – 534.5 points
2 Energy Standard - 522
3 DC Trident – 359.5
4 Iron - 340
MATCH 2:
1 LA Current – 506 points
2 London Roar – 494.5
3 Toronto Titans – 398.5
4 Aqua Centurions - 357
MATCH 3:
1 Energy Standard – 583 points
2 Toronto Titans - 407
3 Aqua Centurions - 390
4 DC Trident - 383
MATCH 4:
1 London Roar – 534.5 points
2 Cali Condors – 474.5
3 LA Current – 438.5
4 Iron – 327.5
Current standings:
Position*Team*Matches Contested*Match Points*Team Points
1*Energy Standard*2*1,105*7
2*London Roar*2*1029*7
3*Cali Condors*2*1009*7
4*LA Current*2*944.5*6
5*Toronto Titans*2*805.5*5
6*Aqua Centurions*2*747*3
7* DC Trident*2*742.5*3
8*Team Iron*2*664.5*2
Remaining ISL SEMIFINAL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE:
Match 5: November 25-26: #1 Energy Standard, #3 London Roar, #5 LA Current, #7 DC Trident
Match 6: November 27-28: #2 Cali Condors, #4 Toronto Titans, #6 Aqua Centurions, #8 Iron
Finals: December 3-4
