Austria and Poland extended their unbeaten runs in men’s EuroHockey U-21 Championship II-A in Walcz while in II-A in Lausanne, Scotland and Wales shared a fiery draw.
Just one game takes place on Thursday across both competitions; Finland face Switzerland in Lausanne.
II-A Walcz
Austria ended Italy’s perfect record in Walcz following a 6-5 rollercoaster to open day three in Walcz
Signs of things to come came in the first minute Adrian Fink scored but Leonardo Arzenton levelled almost immediately. Max Kelner put the Austrians ahead once more but two goals in a minute from Felix Dionisi Vici and Daniele Cavallini swapped the lead; 3-2 to Italy at half-time.
Crucially, the red yamahas got the next three goals with Kelner completing his personal hat trick and Vincent Scheiderbauer putting them 5-3 up.
Dionisi Vici got one back but Josef Winkler’s goal proved just enough for Austria, keeping them out of range despite Valerio Iossa’s late goal.
Autsria’s head coach Robin Rösch summed up the match: “We won after a very hectic and very emotional game. We were often outnumbered and we ourselves made sure that the game was very exciting. In my opinion, however, we deserved to win because we were better by that goal. Unfortunately, many individual mistakes kept setting us back.”
Ukraine got their first win of the competition when they defeated Lithuania 5-1. It was tight in the first half with Dmytro Hrubyi and Danelius Petkevič sharing goals for 1-1.
But a double from Vladyslav Cherniuk and one each from Yevhen Petrenko and Oleksnadr Boiko stretched out a big lead.
Poland were too strong for Luxembourg in a 13-1 win, scoring nine times in the second half with Robert Pawlak getting four of them. It puts them in a share of first place with nine points after three rounds of matches.
| Rank | Team | Played | Wins | Draws | Losses | Goal Difference | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Poland | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 9 |
| 2 | Austria | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 9 |
| 3 | Italy | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 4 | Ukraine | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 5 | Lithuania | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | -18 | 0 |
| 6 | Luxembourg | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | -29 | 0 |
II-B Lausanne
Scotland and Wales shared the points in the only game of day three in Lausanne, a 3-3 belter of a contest.
The game was three minutes old when Tom Cahalin opened the scoring for Scotland after Some good work on the left baseline saw the ball cut back to Cahalin on the penalty spot to blast home .
After that, Wales started to gain some possession and equalised through a Patrick Cradden penalty corner. And they built on that further, getting their noses in front when Benjamin Wall sunk a penalty corner home to make it 2-1.
And they move even further clear with John Bennett scoring his side’s third goal in the second half, making it 3-1 going into the final quarter.
The Scots fought back and were right back in it when Charlie Jack slid the ball low into the bottom corner to pull one back. They equalised in the closing minutes when Ben Galloway slammed a drag flick into the backboard..
Scottish coach Gavin Byers said of the result: “We had numerous chances to score, and could have had more goals that our play deserved, but when you come back from two goals down it feels a bit like a win.
“It keeps things simple for us now. We have to beat the Czech’s in the next game, and if we can do that we can then focus on beating the Swiss. We took our goals well and if we can increase our conversion rate we’ll be in a really good place.”
| WAL – SCO | Pool A | 3 – 3 |
Pool A
| Rank | Team | Played | Wins | Draws | Losses | Goal Difference | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Switzerland | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | Scotland | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| 3 | Czechia | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | Wales | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 1 |
| 5 | Finland | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | -10 | 0 |
