The number one grudge match in North America resurfaced again today. Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson and Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty battled it out for group superiority and, in the presumption they meet later in the knockout stages, a psychological boost.

Unlike the last IEM America encounter, this time it was rapha who came out on top courtesy of brilliant performances on Aerowalk and Hektik.

SK Gaming's dueler opened up strong on Aerowalk and established a lead which he consistently held by 10 or so frags, utilizing his pinpoint timing and item control to close out the map 21-6.

But DaHanG immediately put the defeat aside and kicked off Hektik nicely, scoring two rapid frags to put himself in control. On the hunt for his third kill DaHanG was met by a flying rapha who pulled off a very risky move in a bid to give himself the superior position, which paid off and set up a nine frag spree for the IEM World Champion.

With six minutes left DaHanG began to reduce the deficit thanks to a handful of clever item pick ups but seemingly ran out of ideas after two minutes of solid work, opening up the door for rapha who capitalized and ran away with the game (17-9) and the 2-0 sweep.

Check out our coverage of the IEM American Championship Finals here.

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