U15 Stars Slumping
After losing in Graz last Week 8 - 3 at the hands of ATC Graz 99ers the U15 Stars lost today in St. Pölten against the Black Wings from Linz 7 - 2. In an important contest to secure a birth in the upper round of the U15 Championship the young Star/Tiger combo could not find their game and were unable to stop a smarter Linz Team who who seemed to be able to take advantage of every Stars weakness.
The first period started off fairly even with both team getting few chances early and as so often in the most recent efforts, too much individual play slowed the game down and allowed Linz to slowly gain the upper hand. Late in the first period Linz fianally capitalized on a nice give and go down low in front of the net to go up 1 - 0 and take the lead going into the second period.
The second frame started where the first left off with Linz take taking control of the game with two quick goals after some careless passing and poor decisions allowing them to break through untouched to take a dominating 3 - 0 lead. A short time out by the home team did very little to settle things down until Florian Baltram scored on a powerplay to finally give the Stars some hope, which was dashed late in the period as Linz scored thier fourth of the night on a back door play to regain thier three goal advantage. Goalie Sämi Prosenz had very little help for his teammates who could not stop the shifty Linz fowards Haas and Haudum.
Only 15 seconds into the third period the Black Wings found the back of the net once again and all hope faded fast for the Stars. Now with a sense of urgency which was lacking in the first two periods, it looked like the Stars could get things going and worked much harded getting chance after chance but could not get the break they were looking for until Max Paczkowski from Marcel Hack and Pauli Sztatecsny gave them a little life. Unfortunately all hopes of a miracle comeback were ended when Linz added two more tallies late to earn the decisive victory.
Coaches Comments:
As it so often is in hockey, we started playing when the game was out of reach and when you need the breaks they do not want to happen for you. We missed the opportunity to control the game early when we started to handle the puck to long on our own and tried to win the game individually. We told the boys before the game that we needed to play as a team and instead we chose to play as individuals. We had six players coming off of an emotional U17 game against Graz and expected them to be able to cary this over into the U15 contest but this was just too much to ask and we saw the result. We are here to learn and if we learned anything in the last two weeks it is that you cannot win at any level if you do not play as a team. This message must sink in soon if we are to get back to our winning ways. We expect every player to expect more from themselves and not settle for the average but strive for the best each time out. Losing is a part of the game you need to learn to hate and the feeling has to hit home in order to change old habits and replace them with better ones. Hopefully this bitter loss will change us and make us that much more determined not to feel this way again soon. We will soon see as the next test is against the Vienna Jr.Caps next weekend, a team who needs a victory a much as we do to secure a birth in the upper round!