EuroHockey U21 Championship Men – day one round-up
The opening battles in the EuroHockey U21 Championship Men competitions saw big wins for Poland, Austria and Czechia along with close-run battles which saw Switzerland and Italy prevail.
Each team are pushing for gold from these round-robin events which will bring with it promotion as well as qualification for the next Junior World Cup.
II-A, Walcz
Polish hosts won a crazy game over Lithaunia to conclude the first day of the men’s EuroHockey U21 Championship in Walcz, winning 14-5 in the final reckoning.
It followed earlier wins for Austria and Italy to start the competition in earnest as the battle for promotion and potential Junior World Cup qualification got under way.
Lithuania had raced out of the blocks with Povilas Sinkevičius setting the tone in the first minute while Robert Milevič put them 2-1 up in the ninth minute.
But quick replies from Karol Gumny and captain Robert Pawlak meant the first quarter ended level at 2-2 and the Poles soon pulled away, scoring the next five goals.
Lithuania, though, were not to be defeated and Sinkevičius scored three more in the third quarter to cut the gap to 8-5 going into the final stanza.
Poland kept cool and continued to attack and they closed out the game with six unanswered strikes with Pawlak, Szymon Cyprych and Jakub Hołosyniuk all getting hat tricks.
Earlier, Austria proved too strong for Luxembourg who found the going tough in what was their first ever Under-21 European fixture. It ended 13-0 with ten of the goals coming in the first half.
Game two was incredibly close with Italy eventually grabbing the points when they defeated Ukraine 1-0 thanks to a Leonardo Guiducci winner in the 57th minute.
Tuesday sees the second series of games with Austria facing Lithuania, Luxembourg taking on Italy and Poland up against Ukraine.
II-B, Lausanne
Czechia began their campaign on a winning note as five second half goals saw them get the best of Finland. Jakub Homolka got them off to a great start but the Finns stayed strong in defence until the big break at 1-0.
But a run of four goals in six minutes was the winning of the game with Jonáš Lupač, Vojtěch Janů, Jan Trejbal and Vojtěch Papírek all scoring. Martin Plachý completed the 6-0 win.
A Loris Grandchamp masterclass of set-pieces saw Switzerland delight their home crowd in Lausanne with a healthy win over Wales.
The second quarter saw the hosts break the deadlock through Grandchamp only to fall behind while reduced to 10 players with Wales profiting twice during that time via Ben Wall and Charlie Johnson.
The Swiss equalised in the third quarter through a Grandchamp stroke and he added two penalty corners in the closing quarter to swing the victory his side’s way. Yannick Hug gave some extra insurance in the closing minutes with a couple of goals.
