Sixteen national indoor champions crowned across Europe

The indoor club season is reaching a climax across the continent with 16 national champions already crowned; here’s a round-up of how the titles were decided in Austria, Belgium, England, Germany, Poland, Scotland, Switzerland and Türkiye

Austria

Post SV produced a final masterclass to win the Austrian men’s national indoor title with a breathtaking 11-3 win over SV Arminen in Vienna on Sunday.

Three goals each from Fabian Unterkircher and Paul Bräutigam saw them power to success as they built an 8-3 lead in the advantage and never looked back. A day earlier, Unterkircher scored seven in the semi-final win over HDI-WAC while Arminen defeated AHTC.

Post SV

On the women’s side, AHTC (pictured above) and Arminen both cruised through their semi-final encounters with healthy wins before playing out a low-scoring, hard fought decider. In the end, Maxine Collien and Laura Kern traded goals for a 1-1 scoreline, leading to a shoot-out which AHTC took the laurels 2-0.

Belgium

Waterloo Ducks won their 5th Belgian women’s indoor title by beating Wellington in a shoot-out after regulation time ended 2-2.

The Brabant title holders, crowned 3 times consecutively between 2018 and 2020, suffered against the Uccloises who equalised in the very last minute via their captain Romane Bierlaire.

Waterloo Ducks. Picture: Xavier Piron

On the men’s side, Royal Leopold were victors for the fourth season in a row with a 6-5 final victory over White Star at the Belleheide Centre in Roosdaal.

They did so courtesy of goals from Philippe Simar (three), Tom Degroote (two strokes) and Dylan Englebert. Christophe Moraux ‘s men were pushed all the way as they never managed to build more than a one-goal lead on the scoreboard.

Royal Léopold: Pic: Xavier Piron

England

Chloe Brown’s hat trick of penalty corners underpinned East Grinstead’s excellent 6-3 final win over Surbiton to win the English women’s Super 6s trophy at the Derby velodrome last Sunday.

Along with a sharp finish from Biba Mills and Summer Knight-Thompson, they edged into a 4-2 half-time lead before finishing strong in the closing quarter.

East Grinstead. Pic: Eva Gilbert

Old Georgians , meanwhile, won back-to-back men’s indoor Super 6s title as they blew Wimbledon away in the final with a 7-4 success.

Playing a ruthless counter-attack style, they tore into a 6-0 lead and while the 2023 champions fought back in the closing quarter, OGs proved too strong.

Germany

Mannheimer HC retained the German women’s indoor title at the Volvo ERG FINAL4 in Frankfurt, getting the best of Berliner HC 3-2.

Sonja Zimmerman put in a star performance to be named the tournament’s MVP and she was the one to set them on their way with the first goal in the second minute. They built a 3-0 lead and eventually held on for a narrow win.

Mannheimer HC. Pic: Frank Uijlenbroek/World Sport Pics

Harvestehuder THC won an epic German men’s indoor championship final with a shoot-out win over Crefelder HTC after normal time ended 8-8.

Crefeld had led 5-2 with half-time getting near and they also led 8-5 going into the last 10 minutes but Polish star Gracjan Jarzynski earned HTHC the shoot-out chance in the closing phases. They took that chance with Jasper Ditzer to the fore.

Harvestehuder THC. Pic: Frank Uijlenbroek/World Sport Pics

Poland

LKS Gasawa won the Polish men’s title as they saw off the challenge of WKS Grunwald Poznań 6-4 in last weekend’s final. They did it the hard way, coming back from 2-0 and 3-1 down with the crucial phase coming between the 25th and 40th minutes when they scored four goals without reply. Karol Majchrzak, Robert Gruszczyński and Mateusz Mazany all scored twice in the victory.

LKS Gasawa

Two goals each for Patricia Kosinska and Jagoda Arciszewska propelled UKS SP5 Swarek Swarzędz to the Polish national women’s indoor title as they won 4-2 against Start Brzeziny in Poznań.

The duo combined to build a 2-0 lead in the first quarter and later extended the advantage out to 4-1 before Monika Chmiel pulled one back late in the contest.

UKS SP5 Swarek Swarzędz

Scotland

A goal-laden Charlie Jack was the catalyst in Inverleith`s triumph after shoot-out victory in the Scottish men`s final as they got the best of Western Wildcats.

Normal time ended 4-4 with Inverleith winning the shoot-out 3-2 to take the title and the place in Europe nest season.

Inverleith

Watsonians retained the women’s first division title and their place in Europe with a 2-0 win over Clydesdale Western.

Watsonians coach Keith Smith said: “We were a bit nervous to start with and did well to weather the several open play and penalty corner chance that Clydesdale created in the first half, our defence coped very well with the challenge.   However, after we scored the first goal it calmed the nerves and we settled down and created much more fluidity to our game.”

Watsonians

Switzerland

HC Olten is the new Swiss indoor champion women after an exciting final, prevailing following a shoot-out after normal time ended 3-3 against Rotweiss Wettingen.

In normal time, Dunja Härtsch salvaged the shoot-out chance with a 38th minute equalising goal before Stéphanie Weber stepped up to score the clinching shoot-out goal.

HC Olten

It means Olten did the Swiss double after their men’s team won their title before Christmas in similar fashion, winning a shoot-out against Wettingen.

Türkiye

Gaziantep Doruk won the Turkish women’s title with a thrilling shoot-out success against city rivals Gaziantep Polisgücü. Doruk led 2-1 and 3-2 in normal time before top scorer Fatma Songül Gültekin made the game 3-3 in the closing quarter. Doruk, however, held their nerve to win the crown.

Gaziantep Doruk

On the men’s side, Polisgücü did land gold as they won in impressive fashion in the final with a 5-1 success over Nevsehir Municipality despite falling behind in the 19th minute to an Omer Karakus goal.

Müslum Elagöz and Iran international Reza Norouzzadeh swapped the advantage in the Gaziantep club’s favour and two more goals from Ali Akin Ozkilic saw them run away with the victory.

Gaziantep Polisgücü

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