U15 Stars Back on Course with 5 - 1 win over Jr. Caps
After losing their way in the last two U15 games the youngest stars fought hard to regain the form they had shown earlier on and beat the Vienna Junior Capitals 5 - 1 in Vienna to secure a playoff position and upper round qualification round with the top teams in Austria.
With both teams needing the win it was a nervous start for the Star/Tigers with the home team Capitals presssuring early to gain the lead. It would be the Stars however who would strike first when Andreas Wagner scored in tight after a scrum in the goal mouth to give the stars the 1 - 0 lead. Before the Stars finished celibrating on the bench the Caps had already scored from the insuing faceoff to equalize after a screen shot beat goalie Sämi Prosenz from the top of the left faceoff circle. A shocked Stars group showed great poise, battled hard and after gaining the man advantage after a Caps minor penalty scored the go ahead goal when Philipp Pöschman put a nice wrister past the Caps netminder with Hugo Jansons and Paul Hochmann assisting on the play. On a great effort, Hugo Jansons made it 3 - 1 five minutes later when he took a Christph Kitzenegger pass and buried a nice shot high to the short side to the delight of his teammates.
The second period started with the Stars down a man after a late call on defenceman Jan Blüml but proceeded to kill of the penalty with goalie Sämi Prosenz showing some stellar play to maitain the 3 - 1 lead. At the five minute mark it was Philipp Pöschmann showing his scoring touch once when he snapped a hard shot to the back of the net from the slot with Jansons and Hochmann again assisting. The Caps by no means layed back and came hard but were unable to find a crack in the Stars armour.
The Star/Tigers stuck to thier game plan and allowed the Jr. Caps no room to breathe with a solid defensive performance to a man the Stars frustrated the hom,e team at every turn and were able to counter consistantly. As the clock ran down it was obvious the game was in their control and when Philipp Pöschmann completed his hattrick with just three minute to play the road warriors were elated.
Coaches Coments:
We were very happy not only with the win but how the team bounced back after some bitter losses in the last couple of games. It was great to see contributions from every player and the team will surely need this kind of unity in the next round. As coaches you are always concerned when players lose thier way but this is certain to happen during the course of any season and we came back to win the most important game of the season so far. We would like to congratulate the boys on a great victory and we can now all look forward to some great upcoming contests. This win was certainly a character builder as Tigers president Hary Schroeder put it after the game, and we will work to build on this the rest of the way forward!
Final Score 5 - 1 (3 - 1, 1 - 0, 1 - 0)
