Machine-translated from Hungarian.
The crowd at the Győr Ice Sports Centre were in for a real cracker on Saturday evening, as our team hosted the previously unbeaten Lehel HC in the Andersen League. The two teams already have a ‘history’ with each other; last year we fought a close battle in the final, and in the Hungarian Cup we faced each other in the first round both last year and this year. So far, our team has emerged victorious from every ‘clash’, so it was to be expected that the Jászság side would arrive in Győr eager to prove themselves. The supporters were in fine form too; alongside the sizeable home crowd, a separate ‘contingent’ from Jászberény was also present in the arena, cheering on their team in a truly commendable manner.
The first period began with Győr clearly on top; the puck spent most of the time in the visitors’ third, but there were several dangerous counter-attacks, which finally bore fruit after 13 minutes: We left Prilutski completely unmarked; all he had to do was tap the puck in (0–1). We managed to create plenty of chances after that too, but clinical finishing wasn’t our strong point that evening. Following another counter-attack, the visitors extended their lead to two goals through Pinczés (0–2). Half a minute later, however, Benedek Madácsi cleverly stole the puck and managed to score our first goal (1–2). Although we had nearly three times as many shots on goal as our opponents in the first 20 minutes, they were better at capitalising on their chances, so they went into the break with the lead.
The second period didn’t get off to a particularly good start either: just one minute in, Pinczés received another fine pass and made no mistake (1–3). A good 10 minutes later, Márk Nagy managed to capitalise on a man-up situation and reduce the visitors’ lead to a single goal (2–3). At this point, the match was briefly interrupted by an incident on the pitch: the visitors’ goalkeeper, Monostori, received a two-minute penalty for knocking an object off the pitch. A minute before the break, we managed to score the equaliser following a fine counter-attack, with Bence Dézsi finding the net (3–3), meaning the lads went into the break on level terms.
The final period didn’t get off to a great start either; we’d only just recovered from a penalty that had ‘carried over’ from the previous period when Strenk received a pass completely unmarked two metres from the goal and made no mistake (3–4). Shortly afterwards, we found ourselves a man down again, a situation our opponents capitalised on: Pukhliak received a fine pass from behind the net and fired it past Róth into the net (3–5). Two minutes later, the Jászberény side launched another sharp counter-attack, which Antal finished off (3–6). We were still in the first half of the period when we managed to capitalise on a man-up situation: István Szűcs scored from a pass by Dézsi (4–6). The two-goal deficit didn’t last long; in the 50th minute, Strenk’s shot rebounded off Róth, but Nyika was on hand to fire it home – as it later turned out, sealing the final score (4–7). There were no further goals in the final 10 minutes; Márk Nagy picked up a final disciplinary penalty for a push from behind, so we had no chance of catching up.
**Although we dominated the match in the first two periods, we were unable to convert our chances into goals, and our opponents took full advantage of this, as is to be expected at this level.
We’re moving on: next Saturday we’re away to Vasas, and on the 26th we’ve got the Hungarian Cup second leg against MAC Ikonok.**
Come on, UNI GYŐR ETO!
UNI GYŐR ETO HC vs Lehel LC: 4 – 7(AL29) Goalscorers: **#18 Benedek Madácsi, #86 Márk Nagy, #15 Bence Dézsi, #97 István Szűcs (UNI GYŐR ETO) #79 Prilutskii, #11 Pinczés (2), #9 Strenk, #66 Pukhliak, #16 Antal, #88 Nyika (Lehel)
We’ve put together a selection of the best photos from the match in our gallery:
Photo: Dr Krisztina Németh-Csigai
Fotó: Dr. Németh-Csigai Krisztina