Before the game in hochstadt, there was a lot of fire under the roof at starbulls rosenheim: the 2:10 loss to the top league leaders from regensburg turned the dissatisfaction smoldering among the fans about the sporting performance so far into loud resentment. After the promotion to the DEL2 already aimed at in the past season also in this season currently seems to be far away and the contract extension with coach manuel kofler had been widely disagreed with, after the 2:10 even a long discussion between club officials, team and fans had to be arranged to smooth the waves. After all, the team was the guest game in the aischgrund in the duty and wanted to show the necessary reaction with four full rows. The hochstadter EC, on the other hand, had only 15 fit field players to offer and hoped to pull the teeth of the rosenheimers, who were under tremendous pressure, with an attritional tactic and painful pinpricks.
Oberliga sud: hochstadter EC – starbulls rosenheim 1:4 (0:0, 0:1, 1:3)
The guests had more puck possession at the beginning – as expected – but found it difficult to build up the game and often got stuck in the neutral zone. A few weak finishes and a toothless powerplay were the only results. The HEC watched the whole thing for eight minutes and then took the initiative themselves: ales kreuzer’s shot was dangerously deflected, but just missed the home, max cejka ran alone on a counterattack to rosenheim’s goalie endres, but he waited long and finally parried with the schoner (11.). After that, the upper bavarians recorded a chance by daxlberger (12.), but alligators goalkeeper philipp schnierstein was on the post, then saved with great reflex against pauker (15.) and made against holler (16.) in time to close the short corner.
The home side started the middle third with more than one player, but only a blueliner by maximilian otte, which missed its target, did not come out (22.). In the next few minutes, the game continued to plod along, before the HEC forced its efforts again: michal petrak failed to score from an acute angle (27).), young robert hechtl missed the puck by a hair’s breadth at the open far corner of the guest goal after a deflected entry (29.). A penalty time ended the forward momentum of the up-and-coming team, which again defended strongly in a shorthanded situation. Only with a shot from bilek had to intervene schnierstein again (33.). Also the next powerplay of the guests did not bring anything, but the aischgrunders, who were shorthanded, love thereby strength and needed time to catch their breath. Time, which the favorite used ice-cold: baindl failed first at the post (37.) but a little later, holler took an unobstructed shot from the right face-off circle and fired it past schnierstein into the far corner. The alligators were eager for a quick response, but hechtl found his master from close range in endres (38.).
Hochstadt’s hopes for a turnaround were dashed right at the start of the final 20 minutes. The first forward line of the guests loved to flash their skills: baindl won the face-off and passed to bergmann, who played over the still unsorted HEC team with a long pass and found the starting holler, who only had to push in for the 0:2 (41.). Shortly thereafter, the home side pressed on the power play for the connection, but meier just threw himself into a shot by jari neugebauer (43.). In the following, the home team had a hard time – until the 50th minute. Minute, when neugebauer on pass of hechtl goalkeeper endres did not look good and scored with four against four to the 1:2 in the short corner. Hochstadt scraped together all reserves and pushed for the equalizer. But the team was not rewarded, caught in one of the now rare counter-attacks the third counter-goal – and again holler had the puck as the last touched (57.). HEC-coach martin ekrt took a timeout and philipp schnierstein off the ice to make the impossible possible with six field players. But this goal did not save the game: after only 40 seconds, the hosts gave back the lead, and morales scored into the empty net to make the final score 1:4 (59.).
From the HEC’s point of view, a bitter, above all too clear defeat: "tactically and in terms of fighting, the boys have delivered a very good performance. And if we push two goals ahead in the second period, no one can complain. On the other hand, we have been punished for individual errors ice cold. If you look at the whole game, we weren’t allowed to leave the ice as losers. But we have to play the same way in the next game and then reward ourselves" said hochstadt’s coach ekrt, who thus contradicted the statement of his opponent, manuel kofler. He wanted to see a strong performance of his team. But the starbulls could not fully convince the 50 fans, they seemed nervous and shaky at times. Before the new duel with regensburg on sunday – this time on home ice – rosenheim will have to come up with something to wipe the slate clean.
The statistics of the game
Hochstadter EC: goal: schnierstein, henseleit; defense: otte/babinsky, neved/roth, stutz/wiedl; attack: vojcak/hechtl/kreuzer, petrak/seibel/L. Lenk, neugebauer/frohlich/cejka starbulls rosenheim: goal: endres, steinhauer; defense: heidenreich/bergmann, meier/neumann, linden/krumpe, nowak/vollmayer; attack: holler/baindl/witala, daxlberger/pauker/echtler, frosch/morales/bucheli, bilek/slanina/zick
Referees: florian fauerbach, maik blankart, dominic six
Spectators: 646
Goals: 0:1 alexander holler (38.), 0:2 alexander holler (41.), 1:2 jari neugebauer (50.), 0:3 alexander holler (57.), 1:4 enrico henrique morales (59.)
Penalty minutes: 12 / 8