The Women’s U18 team opened up the Division 1 World Championships in Vaujany France against Austria in a closely contested game.
Head coach Tibor Marton and his staff decided to go with the experienced Renata Poltzer in the net. In the first period both teams changed minor penalties but neither was able to take advantage of their power play opportunity.
In the opening minutes of the second period Hanna Pinter took a pass from Kinga Jókai Szilágyi and was able to put one past the Austrian goalie for the 1-0 lead. Like in the first period both teams each had one power play on which no goals were scored.
The third period went smoothly until just under five minutes left when Austria called timeout, in the last minute the events picked up. Jelena Grikovic was called for tripping with 50 seconds left in the game, six seconds later Austria pulled their goalie, but with the two extra skaters they were not able to get past Poltzer. Lotti Odnoga scored an empty net goal in the closing seconds to secure the win for Hungary.
“It was a very hard fought game, in the first period were playing a bit scared, but as the game went on we picked up the pace, we were not really able to play better than them but we scored a lucky goal and that help to calm us down. The Austrian team was pushing but they couldn’t really produce any scoring chances, when they did Renáta Poltzer made some great saves, she came up with 3 or 4 big saves. Overall this was huge that we had most of the scoring chances, tactilly we still have some things to work on, we need to be disciplined in the defensive zone and more aggressive on the offensive.” Norbert Buzás assistant coach
All info about the world championships can be found here.