Men's EHL KO16 Gets Underway At Surbiton HC
By Colin Pike
The Men's EHL KO16 started on Thursday as the Euro Hockey League returned to England for the first time since 2012 when East Grinstead HC were the hosts.
French club Lille prevailed 4-3 in a shootout over Grasshopper Club Zurich after the opening match at Sugden Road ended 1-1 after a tight 60 minutes battle.
Oliver Harberthur gave Grasshopper Club a 27th minute lead, but Viktor Lockwood levelled for Lille 52 seconds into the fourth quarter to set up the shootout.
Grasshopper went first in the shootout with the first six attempts all successful to make the score 3-3. Fabio Landtwing, Roman Richner and Lucas Harte scored for Grasshopper with Viktor Lockwood, Igor Lockwood and Matteo Desgouillons successful for Lille.
Nahuel Salis failed to score from the penalty spot after a foul was given during Grasshopper's fourth attempt, but Paul Piot also failed to score to leave the score at 3-3 with one attempt per team remaining.
Fabian Steiner also failed to score from Grasshopper's fifth attempt, but sudden death was avoided when Malo Martinache duly scored to put Lille into the KO8 round.
In Game 2, Lille were joined by Royal Leopold Club of Belgium who beat determined Irish club Banbridge 4-2 to secure a match-up with Lille.
The game was goalless until the 26th minute when Tom Boon converted a penalty corner in a match in which five of the six goals would come from that set-piece. Banbridge, who had played on the Sugden Road pitch in two pre-season matches against Surbiton, fought back just before half time from a second successive penalty corner awarded just 1.7 seconds before the interval. Philip Brown levelled and jumped in the air in celebration to leave all to play for in the second half.
Royal Leopold restored their lead in the 33rd minute when Boon scored his second goal of the game, again from a second successive penalty corner. Boon completed his hat-trick in the 45th minute as Royal Leopold's eighth penalty corner of the match ended up in the roof of the Banbridge net.
Trailing 3-1, Brown scored his second goal of the match from Banbridge's fourth penalty corner, but Boon took the individual honours with four minutes remaining securing his fourth and Royal Leopold's fourth goal with an acute open play shot from left of the goal.
Grasshopper Club will play Banbridge in a ranking match at 1215 on Friday before Lille and Leopold Club meet in the KO8 at 1430.
In the third match of the day, German club Mannheimer were too strong for Austria's AHTC Wien, winning 8-0 with four goals in each half. Gonzalo Peillat took the individual honours, joining Tom Boon at the top of the scorers list with a four goal haul.
Peillat struck twice from penalty corners in the 9th and 11th minutes with Andreas Rafi and Raphael Hartkopf both scoring from open play in the 13th and 25th minutes respectively.
Peillat again scored the first two goals of the third quarter, from open play in the 43rd minute and a penalty corner a minute later.
Matteo Poljaric added the seventh just 36 seconds into the fourth quarter and Ben Hasbach's 55th minute penalty corner conversion completed Mannheimer's win and a place in KO8.
Mannheimer's opponents will be Dutch club Bloemendaal who saw off Spanish club Real Club de Polo 2-1 after leading 2-0 in the 14th minute.
Bloemendaal included former Surbiton player Zach Wallace in their starting lineup and took the lead in the fourth minute from their second penalty corner. Polo Club's goalkeeper, Luis Calzado made several saves but Bloemendaal's captain, Floris Wortelboer's shot finally evaded Calzado to put the Dutch club ahead.
Teun Beins found the net from Bloemendaal's fourth penalty corner in the 14th minute and Polo Club trailed 2-0 after the second quarter.
Polo Club seemed to have a new lease of life at the start of the third quarter, and halved the deficit in the 33rd minute, Benedikt Schwarzhaupt finding the backboard from a penalty corner. Shortly afterwards, both teams found themselves reduced to ten players, Marc Miralles of Bloemendaal and Jaime Ibran of Polo Club both seeing green.
Schwarzhaupt saw yellow two minutes before the end of the third quarter and Bloemendaal's Dennis Warmerdam also saw yellow in the penultimate minute, but Polo Club couldn't find the equaliser and will have to settle for a ranking match with AHTC Wien at 1645 on Friday.
Mannheimer and Bloemendaal meet in KO8 at 1900 on Friday night.
More information about the Euro Hockey League KO16 can be found at the Eurohockey Altius website here