Game 2 of day 2 brought the quality hockey we’ve come to expect from EHL.
Former winners Harvestehuder from Germany met up with Leopold from Belgium.
The first quarter might have been scoreless but we saw some top level hockey from both teams. With several real scoring opportunities on both ends. We had to wait for Q2 and the first penalty corner to add a goal on the board. Who else but Tom Boon – a real goal scoring machine with +50 goals last season in Belgium – dragflicked his corner on the backboard. Q2 was clearly dominated by the Belgians.
We can be short about Q3 where apart from 1 shot on goal for Leopold and 1 corner for Harvestehuder nothing much happened.
Still 1 goal down it was up to Harvestehuder to start creating more. And the start of Q4 saw just that with some important saves by Henet in the Belgian goal. Leopold folded back on their own half and managed to survive the German press. The final minute was a hot one but in the end it was the one penalty corner from Tom Boon that sealed the win.
Tom Boon was happy the game plan worked out for them. We were told to stay low and defend hard so Harvestehuder would struggle. Because they love counters and they’re not play makers, so that is the Belgian’s game plan. Which according to Boon worked out well where until the last minutes of the game Harvestehuder hardly came into their circle. We defended pretty well today.
Looking ahead Boon told us they were going to analyze the game of the Austrians Post SV tonight. He’s confident Leopold ought to be the stronger team but did not forget to mention in sports everything is possible. But his focus will be on taking the 3 points home in tomorrow’s game versus the Austrians as well.
