U15 " Falling Stars"
After the last two less than optimistic outings the U15Star/Tiger combo felt they would right the ship and take a couple of points from KAC in Klagenfurt on Saturday afternoon. They would be in for a rude awakening and before tem minute mark of the first period they were down 0 - 3. Some very sloppy play in thier own zone with weak passes and poor one on on play lead to the disasterous start. Patrick Dieber put his team on the baord finally to stop the bleeding at the twelve minute mark and the road team got some of their courage back and played with more determination only to have a bad give away in thier own zone lead to the fourth KAC goal with just one second on the clock.
To add insult to injury poor defensiv zone coverage early in the second lead to yet another KAC score and put the Stars even further behind and by far the worst effort of the season so far was to even get worse when a KAC player was allowed to wander into the slot and put a high shot to the blocker side to give his tema a 6 - 1 lead. The Stars puller there keeper Sämi Prosenz and replaced him with Maxi Wehrhan who played well but had to take another goal from a screened point shot to make it 7 - 1 Klagenfurt. A demoralized group continued to work and to thier credit did not quit! When Patrick Dieber got his second from Philipp Pöschmann and Jan Blüml the Stars at least had some hope and fought hard there rest of the period.
With nothing more to lose except thier pride the young Stars played a different game in the third. Prosenz went back in the net to regain some of his self confidence and when Dieber scored his third in a row on a great solo effort to bring the Stars to within four you could feel the energy come back into the team. Max Paczkowski grabbed a lose pcuk off a Dieber check at the offensive blueline and walked in alone to beat the KAC goalie and gave his team a realistic chance for a comeback now only being down 7 - 4 with six minutzes to go. When Phiipp Pöschmann scored from Dieber (his fifth point of the day) and Paczkowski on the power play just 8 secondes later, it looked like the comeback was within reach. A turbulent last five minutes saw a different Stars team who were now full of energy and determination and out skated and out work thier opponents from Klagenfurt. Unfortunately the chances the Stars had were not converted and the game ended 7 - 5 for the home team in what turned out to be a very exciting finish and as so often said in hockey had the Stars played the whole game with this much effort it would have been a different outcome.
Coaches Comments:
A bad first period lead to this defeat and we baisically beat ourselves once more. Terrible defensive zone work coupled with some unfortunate individual mistakes cost us this game. It is never nice to get beat like this and with these young players anything is possible as could be seen at the end of the game. I was happy that Prosenz came back strong after being pulled to shut out KAC in the third and a few of our guys played very well. Patrick Dieber and Moritz Matzka both had very strong games and even when you lose you can win and I though the third period showed us that when you never give up and play for your pride anything can happen. We did come up short, but we will be ready for this team next time out. We have a tough weekend ahead of us in Villach and at home against Innsbruck and it would be nice to continue where we left off in the third period today.
Final Score KAC 7 - Star/Tigers 5 (4 -1, 3 - 1, 0 - 3)
