Croatia assured themselves a place in the final of the men’s EuroHockey Indoor Championship II-A in Zelina following key wins over both Slovakia and Denmark.

Hungary got their first win of the competition in the day’s opening game when they beat Bulgaria 9-3. A tight first half saw the Hungarians lead 3-1 with their opponents ruing a missed penalty stroke.

But they raced away in the second half with Milán Galba netting three times and Zsigmond Szóga and András Hortobágyi getting two each.

Croatia added to their confident start with a 6-2 defeat of Slovakia, moving up to six points. They were in healthy shape when Matthias Bachmann and Josip Krleža made it 2-0 in Q1 and they stretched out a six-goal advantage before the Slovaks finished strong with a couple of late goals.

Slovakia bounced back in the evening session with a 13-2 win over Bulgaria with five goals from Daniel Petráš and four from Adrian Augustinič.

The day concluded with Croatia getting their key win over Denmark, the crucial phase coming between the 13^th and 18^th minutes when they scored four goals in jig-time.

Before that, Denmark had 2-1 with a couple of Jesper Jonasson goals in Q1 but they soon found themselves trailing 5-2.

They got it back to 5-4 briefly but Anže Fujs slotted a killer sixth goal for a 6-4 win and top spot in the group with one round of group games to go.

Who joins them in the final will be determined by the meeting between Denmark and Slovakia in the morning.

Saturday results

Teams	Title	Scoreline
DEN – CRO	Pool A	4 – 6
BUL – SVK	Pool A	2 – 13
SVK – CRO	Pool A	2 – 6
HUN – BUL	Pool A	9 – 3

Table standings after day two

Rank	Team	Pl	W	D	L	Goal Diff	Pts
1	Croatia	3	3	0	0	27	9
2	Slovakia	3	2	0	1	15	6
3	Denmark	3	2	0	1	13	6
4	Hungary	3	1	0	2	-4	3
5	Bulgaria	4	0	0	4	-51	0

Sunday schedule

Time	Teams	Title
08:30	SVK – DEN	Pool A
10:00	CRO – HUN	Pool A
13:00	3rd Pool A – 4th Pool A
14:30	1st Pool A – 2nd Pool A