Decisive 0-3 defeat in the second relegation game / Kettner: “Joy and suffering are close together”
The German U18 women's national team lost its second relegation game at the 2018 IIHF U18 Women's Ice Hockey World Championship in Dmitrov (Russia) with 0:3 (0:1; 0:2; 0:0) against Switzerland and is thus promoted to Promoted back to Division IA last year.
Both teams had the chance to take the lead within the first minutes of the game. Up until this point, the German team had fired more shots at the Swiss goal. The Swiss once again got the first goal of the game on the scoreboard. Lisa Rüedi poked the disc into the German goal out of a crowd in the 10th minute to make it 0-1. The German team then did good defensive work, so that all of the Swiss' quick counterattacks were thwarted. On the other hand, the strikers in the black, red and gold jerseys tried to launch their own attacks on the opponent's goal. However, they mostly got stuck in defense, so Germany went into the first break with a narrow deficit.
The second third began with a strong defensive performance DEB-Selection. German strikers blocked shots from the blue line several times. When a German player had to go to the penalty box in the 23rd minute, the Swiss, in the person of Rahel Enzler, scored to make it 0-2. A deflected ricochet from Lisa Rüedi almost six minutes before the second break allowed the opposition to pull away to 0-3.
In the final section she tried DEB-Choose anything to put pressure on the opponent's goal. In the 44th minute of the game, Luisa Kaiser fired a shot from the slot just wide of the goal. Two German penalties in quick succession in the 48th and 53rd minutes took some of the wind out of the attacking efforts. Five minutes before the end, coach Tommy Kettner took his goalkeeper off the ice in favor of a sixth skater. Just under three minutes before the end we had a great chance to score the next goal. Switzerland received a penalty, six Germans now faced four Swiss field players. But the gate seemed to be boarded up. And so the game ended with a 0-3 defeat and direct relegation for the German team.
Tommy Kettner, national coach of the U18 women's national team: “Unfortunately, joy and sorrow are very close together in sport. The girls played an outstanding preliminary round. The fact that the relegation is now ending like this is very bitter. The team has nothing to blame itself for today. She has shown that she can play with the teams from the top division. We now have to take these positive experiences with us into the next season and then start again.
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