U15 Tiger Stars advance to Semi Final
After a rough start on Saturday in St. Pölten the U15 Star Tigers Combo defeated Innsbruck this afternoon at the Albert Schultz Halle in vienna 3 - 1 to advance to the Semi Finals for the austrian U15 Championship.
Saturday the Stars must have thought that they would walk over the happless HCI squad as they did the week before but as we all should know playoffs have their own laws and the young Stars were caught completely off guard and were fortuante to come away with an shoot out win in the first game.
After a 2 - 0 first period with Philipp Pöschmann scoring twice first from Max Paczkowski and Simon Wolf and then again from Daniil Ovchinnikov to take it into the intermission. The Stars thought that the second period would be theirs but it would be the road team who took the game back and scored twice to keep the game close as Emil Sztatecsny put the Stars up by one 3 - 2 going into the second period break. It was certain that the home team would take over in the third but failed to capitalize on numerous opportunities with Huber coming up big for the Tirol Capital and with just 47 seconds left Ínnsbruck snuck one over the line to equal the score and take the Stars to a shoot out. Again Philipp Pöschmann came up bifg as he scored the winner with Sämi Prosenz stopping all three Innsbruck shots to secure the win!
4 - 3 (2 - 0, 1 - 2, 0 - 1) 1 - 0 (penalty Shootout)
Sunday promissed to be another tough one with Innsbruck now believing and the Stars a little nervous after the close win the in the first game and as expected the game was much closer than it the Stars would have liked.
the Stars scored first when Baltram finished a nice thre way passing play from Paczkowski and Ovchinnikov but again the Stars could not manage to build up the lead and when a harmless point shot beat a screened Prosenz in net the stage was set for another nailbiter.
In the second it would be Sebastian Habernig who would score twice within two minutes. First on a one timer from Paul Koudelka and then on a great feed in the slot from behind the net from Thomas Zitz and Paul Hochman to finally give the home team a bit of insurance going into the third up 3 - 1. Niether team would score in the third as Max Wehrhan taking over from a strong Sämi Prosenz in the Stars net, closed the door on a very good and disciplined Innsbruck team. The Stars now advance to the Semi Final with the first two of three games to be played next Saturday and Sunday in Vienna against the winner of the Vienna Jr. Caps - Graz 99er series which will be decided on Wednesday evening in Graz.
Tigers/ Stars 3 , Innsbruck 1 (1 - 1, 2 - 0, 0 - 0)
