Both Fehérvár and MAC were in the semi finals of the Austrian U20 league, MAC took on RedBull whereas Volán faced Olimpia. Both series went to the max three games.
Fehérvár AV19-Olimpia Ljubljana
In game one in Fehérvár the home team struck first late in the first period by the way of Ferenc Kocsis. In the first minute of the second period Volán had a 2-0 lead when Benjámin Nemes put the puck past the Olimpia goalie. By the time the game reached the midway point Alba Volán had opened up a 3-0 lead on a goal from Gergely Korbuly. Fehérvár goalie Dániel Kornakker shut the door on Olimpia as he registered a shutout, in the end Dániel Mazzag scored an empty net goal to set the 4-0 final.
Game two was in Slovenia, it did not take long for Olimpia to take advantage of the home ice as they were up 1-0 before the two minute mark of the game. The second period was much like the first as in the home team scored early and killed the penalties that they had. Alba Volán was finally able to get on the scoreboard when Krisztián Pál scored in the final minute of the period to make it 2-1. The third period was a battle as Fehérvár tried to tie up the game but in the end they came up short and it was back to Hungary for the deciding third game.
Fehérvár was determined to win the rubber game on home ice, they came out strong and took a 1-0 lead as Szilárd Hamvai scored on the first power play chance that the team had. The second period had some tussles in it but when the dust had settled Roland Vokla had scored a powerplay goal to put Volán up 2-0, minutes later Olimpia broke the shutout that Korankker had going. In the third period Kornakker stood tall and in the end Nemes scored an empty netter to send Fehérvár into the finals against RedBull Salzburg.
Tyler Dietrich-”We knew it was going to be tough, Ljubljana has a really strong lineup and obviously with last year's result they had the confidence they could beat us. We prepared well and the guys were really excited for the challenge. Game one went pretty well, and I thought we responded really well after game two. Nobody got too down about the loss and we were in a good spot to be playing the deciding game at home. It was a 60 minute fight last night, and we had really big contributions from all through the group, It's a great feeling to win that series and earn the chance to compete again for the trophy.”
Márk Szaller-”We were very focused when we stepped on the ice for game three, we knew that whoever wins is in the finals, and we accomplished this. We have a new goal and that is to beat Salzburg and win the EBYSL trophy.”
Fehérvár AV19-Olimpia Ljubljana 4-0
Olimpia Ljubljana-Fehérvár AV19 2-1
Fehérvár AV19-Olimpia Ljubljana 3-1
MAC Budapest-EC RedBull Salzburg
RedBull took an early 1-0 lead on a power play goal, by the end of the first period they had opened up a 3-0 lead against MAC. It was 4-0 before Dániel Papp scored a goal to put the Hungarian side on the scoreboard. In the third period the teams traded goals but it was not enough as RedBull won on home ice 5-2, Bence Bödök scored the second Hungarian goal.
Game two was back in Budapest, maybe the Austrian club was not used to the spartan conditions but RedBull struggled. They scored first but István Terbócs tied it up on a power play goal. A second power play goal by Bödök gave MAC their first lead of the series and a 2-1 lead after the first period. In the second period Terbócs netted his second goal of the game with Richárd Tóth scoring the third MAC power play goal. In the third RedBull managed to get one back on the power play but minutes later Terbócs completed his hattrick.
Everyone knew that the third game would be hard one since the home team won handily in the first two games. The home team scored first but minutes later Urso Bjeloglic tied it up 1-1, in the second Terbócs made it 2-1 for MAC Budapest. this was when everything fell apart for the Hungarian club as Salzburg scored twice in a 61 second span and minutes later scored again to be up 4-2. In the third period the home team scored three more times before Tóth scored at the end to set the score 7-3.
Bob Dever-”I'm really proud of my team, we played as well as we could have against the RedBull machine. They had to load their team up with players from their MHL team to beat us, it's an entirely different team basically. Our kids played great for half a game last night but then the wheels fell off when they got three goals in about 4 minutes. I think it's a great learning experience for my players, you have to be in those pressure games against better teams to get better.”
András Herszényi-”At the beginning no one thought we could make it this far except for us, I feel we have nothing to be ashamed of. In the first game except for the first period the game was balanced, even though we lost we were prepared to face them in game two. In the second game we played a perfect game and thats why we won 5-2. The third game started balanced and we had the lead, after the breakdown in the second period we were not able to get back into the game against roster that was no stocked with MHL players. They played harder and deserved to play in the finals.”