France won the women’s EuroHockey Championship II in Prague as two early goals saw them defeat the Czech Republic hosts, completing a great week’s work.
The Czechs, though, were able to celebrate a ticket to the Olympic qualifiers along with fourth place finishers Ukraine, coming in just behind bronze medal winners Wales.
In the final, the French got off to a dream start when Alice Lesgourgues scored a corner drag-flick and that was back up by a clever deflection move from Tessa-Margot Schubert in the seventh minute for 2-0.
The French dominated those early phases and went close to a third with a strong reverse-stick shot before the Czechs settled.
They were unable to make full use of three corners before the end of the first quarter and another batch in the closing quarter when Kamila Kopecká was on the charge.
Lucie Ehrmann also made some brilliant stops to keep a clean sheet for the French and add to a hugely positive summer for their female teams. This was their best result in Europe for 18 years.
Indeed, player of the tournament Philippine Delemazure traversed both their Under-18 side’s retention of top division status in Crefeld last month and then shone in this tournament.
She was one of the award winners along with Czech goalkeeper Barbora Ćecháková while Ukraine’s Karyna Leonova top scored with five strikes.
Ukraine, though, were denied a medal by Wales who produced a great comeback in normal time and then won a shoot-out to finish on the podium.
Veronika Movchan and Yevheniia Moroz built a 2-0 half-time lead but that was wiped out in the third quarter via Elisabeth Bingham and Isabelle Howell for 2-2.
Then Ella Jackson kept out all three Ukranian shoot-outs while Phoebe Richards, Isobel Webb and Millie Holme all scored for a 3-0 success. It was their best performance since 2009 while it was Ukraine’s highest placing in Europe since 2007.
In Pool C, Poland defeated seventh placed Lithuania 3-0 to claim fifth spot; Austria were too strong for eighth finishers Slovakia and so took sixth place.
