Women's national team: narrow defeat against the Swiss
The women's national team lost the second game at the 4 Nations Tournament in Füssen after extra time. The score against Switzerland was 4:5 (2:1/0:2/2:1).
Before the game there was an honor, Andrea Lanzl (ERC Ingolstadt) played her 320th international match and replaced Bettina Evers as the record national player.
Both teams changed their starting goalkeeper compared to the previous day. Sandra Abstreiter started with DEBteam, Ramona Forrer started with the Swiss. Both goalkeepers were equally busy. Because there were attacks and shots from both teams and some of those shots were very dangerous. Overall, Switzerland was able to gain a slight advantage, but then, with a bit of luck, Germany managed to make it 1-0. Daria Gleißner pulled the trigger and her shot deflected into an arc lamp. Four minutes later, the newly crowned record international player struck. After a counterattack, she was able to increase the score to 2-0 with a margin shot. But 114 seconds before the first break, a mistake by the Germans brought the Swiss back into the game. Laura Zimmermann was able to use this to make the score 2-1 at halftime.
Germany didn't allow Switzerland to really get into the game at the beginning of the second third. Two power plays even resulted in advantages. After 2 minutes, Switzerland took advantage of the Germans' next mistake. Shannon Sigrist gave Germany's goalkeeper no chance with a shot into the far corner. Five minutes before the second break, Switzerland had the opportunity to take the lead when they were twice as numerous, but Germany survived this critical phase. Even another penalty had no consequences and Switzerland still went into the second break with a lead. Because Lara Stalder scored six seconds before the end to make it 30:2.
Germany pushed for an equalizer in the final third and was rewarded early on. After a nice combination, Andrea Lanzl was able to score her second goal of the game. 114 seconds were played. And it got even better, as Nicola Eisenschmid put Germany back in the lead after 46 minutes. But of course Switzerland wasn't beaten yet and a minute later Laura Zimmermann made it 4-4. There was a lot of excitement in front of both goals, both teams had their chances to score. However, the teams failed to score another goal and so there was the second extra time of the tournament.
This began with Germany in the majority. 110 seconds of power play could not be used, but Andrea Lanzl's shot against the post didn't take much to achieve success. 66 seconds before the end, Switzerland scored the winning goal after a counterattack. Lara Stalder secured two more tournament points for the Swiss.
Christian Künast, women’s national coach: “The team's performance had a lot of light and shadow. Too many individual errors prevented a better result. The team showed strong morale and a good performance in the final third, and we can build on that. Tomorrow we will have to mobilize all our strengths again against Finland to end the home tournament on a positive note.”
You can find all the statistics for the tournaments HERE
U18 women's national team: defeat against Finland
At the 4-nation tournament in Finland, the German U18 women's national team lost its opening game against the hosts 0:2 (0:0, 0:1, 0:1).
The German team started with commitment and was able to keep the game open right from the start in the first third despite being outnumbered. Thanks to a strong defense, the first third break was scoreless.
In the fourth minute of the second period, Pauliina Salonen, assisted by Nea Tervonen, gave the Finnish team a deserved 1-0 lead. Even after that, U18 women's national coach Franziska Busch's team was able to rely on their strong defense and Sofie Disl in goal with a total of 31 saves.
Even in the final third, the final impact of the attack was missing. Three outnumbered situations in the final third alone could not be taken advantage of. Shortly before the end, the Finnish team made the final score 2-0 through Nelli Laitinen.
Tomorrow it's against the Czech team, who lost their opener today 1:3 against the Swiss.
Franziska Busch, U18 women’s national coach: "We accepted the Finnish team's fast game well from the start. The team implemented the defensive instructions well. Unfortunately, we didn't create enough chances offensively and weren't forceful enough. Now we will evaluate and analyze the game and continue to work on implementing the instructions tomorrow against the Czechs."
You can find all the statistics for the tournaments HERE