The Lithuanian women's ice hockey team won a dramatic and extremely important victory at the world ice hockey championship.
In the fourth match of the IIIA division of the World Championship, two undefeated teams - Lithuania and Hong Kong - met. Although the opponents still had a three-goal lead in the third quarter, the Lithuanian national team recovered impressively and won overtime and won after a penalty shootout. 5:4.
The match started unsuccessfully for the Lithuanians - in the third minute of the match, the first goal fell into the goal of the Lithuanian national team. Made a mark Andrea Lam (02:38, directed by Joaquina Yuen).
The balance in the match was restored by the Lithuanian national team at the beginning of the second half, when it sent the puck from close range after a teammate's throw Maria Kukanova (22:15, directed by Klara Mueller, Gabija Petrauskaitė). However, an extremely unsuccessful section followed - Klara Müller's shot hit the goal post, and on the other side of the field Apple Wang was accurate (28:29, rez. translated by Aman Leung).
In the second half, the rivals managed to score another goal when they achieved the goal Charleen Wong throw (33:33, rep. Chung Kiu Lee, Tracy Wong).
In the third quarter, a penalty was awarded to the Hong Kong goal, but Emilia Tučiūtė's shot was saved by the goalkeeper. Not only that, but the rivals staged their response by increasing the lead to three goals. This time he excelled Tracy Wong (48:38, directed by Andrea Lam, Chung Kiu Lee).
In order to keep their hopes of winning the gold, the girls of our country were forced to score at least three goals in the last eight minutes. He inspired the team Viltautė Jasinevičiūtė from a sharp corner leaving no hope for the opponent's goalkeeper (52:59, rez. translated by M. Kukanova). Soon, Aušrinė Rakauskaitė made a shot from a distance, Gabija Petrauskaitė directed the puck towards the goal, where she was Clara Muller reduced the deficit to a single goal (53:46, rez. perd. G. Petrauskaitė, A. Rakauskaitė).
Having got a chance to save themselves, the Lithuanian national team scored their fourth goal, which equalized the result, without waiting long. Intruding into the opponents' zone K. Mueller restored equality in the match with a high and accurate throw (55:35, rez. translated by A. Rakauskaitė).
During the remaining time of the match, no more goals were scored, so the teams played overtime, during which the result also did not change. In the series of penalties, the rivals were the first to score, but at the decisive moment, the representatives of our country did not make a mistake again. Emilija Tučiūtė equalized the lead, Vaiva Rastenytė put the Lithuanians ahead, and Marija Kukanova took away the last hopes of the opponents to save themselves, as Viltė Beličenkaitė stopped all their subsequent shots.
After the victory, the Lithuanian national team retained the first position in the championship: on Sunday, in the last match against Ukraine a win would guarantee gold medals and a ticket to a higher division.
According to Mauro Baltrukonis, the assistant coach of the national team, the national team did not play the game they wanted in the first two quarters today, and that was caused by excitement.
"We felt stressed from the first minutes, so we couldn't make the most of our chances and we allowed our opponents to excel. The result after the first and second half was really bad, so I'm very happy that in the third half we managed to calm down our girls and the result changed for the better," said the coach.
Marija Kukanova, who scored the first goal of the national team and took the decisive penalty, admitted that the second goal helped her break through the match.
"The match was very tense, it was very difficult because the opponents were very fast and actively played at the goal. But their goalkeeper was not as good as ours, so we scored against them and won. The mood of the team changed the most after two quarters. After the second goal, we were already fired up and we really wanted to win and we believed in victory", - the national team defender shared her thoughts after the match
