It was a slightly reshuffled team that started the 5th match of the season, with a married Alex back to the team, an injured Ulf keeping civil clothes for the day and a late Norbert, it was decided to start as follow from left to right: Markus, Stefan, PA, Hans, Michael and Alex on the line with Norbert ready to get in after 10 minutes. With Wan unable to come, Angus had his turn at playing the full match. The team was otherwise fully equiped with 14 players in total. To the regular Dominik, Yoann, Rolf and Norbert, the team welcomed back Lars once again fully fit and Guillaume from paternity leave!
Winning the toss, Yan Chai declined the ball which Hans used to good effect opening the score for AKITA. In defense though, AKITA struggled to find his mark and conceded too much space with Yan Chai using astutely their oversized line player. Stefan scored twice but Yan Chai was following close and moved one up with a quick fast break. The AKITA team was proving quite resourceful spreading the ball with Markus making a real difference in starting the movements and Alex ending them safely to come back to 5-5. This was the start of a strong five minutes for AKITA with a much improved defending. Hans (with 2), Michael and Markus allowed for it to be 5 in a row and 9-5 on the 11th minute.
With some breathing space, the AKITA team had an opportunity to break clear but the Yan Chai team was remarkable of abnegation and effort and scored three before Yoann scored his first. The flow of goal was definitely outside of the AKITA standard but with Yan Chai trying to surprise with fast attack on all chances and AKITA happy to run the fast breaks with a strong bench there was no reason for slowing down. Hans scored 2 to answer to Yan Chai goals before Norbert first for a 13 - 10 lead with 5 minutes before the interval. The ball was circulating quite well and with Yan Chai bench suffering against a more homogenous AKITA team, Yoann, Hans, Norbert made it 16 - 12. To finish the half, Lars seeing a gap in the defense surprised everyone with a low shot from the right ending in the bottom left of the goal. With one goal for one shot, this was definitely German efficiency.
The second half started like the first with each team answering to each other. Using the advantage of a late 2 minutes for Hans after he protested too expressively for an opponent tripping him on a fast break without being sanctioned, Yan Chai Scored first but Hans answered immediately on his return with his adrenaline still quite high from the event. Norbert scored a penalty for 19 – 14 and a Hans goal made it 20 in only 31 minutes. After another 2 minutes was whistled on Dominik who had made the effort to run to try to stop a fast break, PA moved to the left wing to fill the gap and made good use of the Yan Chai high defense to erase the defender and slot the ball between the legs of the keeper for his only shot of the day. With Hans slotting a power shot through the keeper, this was 2-0 for this period with one man down and a 6 goal advantage for the first time. Thanks to their never say die attitude, Yan Chai kept pushing trying to make goals as fast as possible as time was slipping through. Stefan was nevertheless keeping the count and he added two goals to protect the AKITA lead. With 10 minutes to go the score was on 24 – 19.
A dip in concentration by AKITA was all Yan Chai needed to score 3 in 2 minutes and come back within 2 goals. Unfortunately, it was about to be Angus’ time. As Hans came back on the pitch to score his 10th of the day, Angus proved himself just unbeatable, with the Yan Chai Team presenting themselves alone in front of him on fast breaks, he saved three out of the in the last 5 minutes. It was making things too easy for the other players obviously as Hans added a last personal one, before Norbert and Markus closed the score 28 - 22.
Hans 11, Stefan 4, Norbert 4, Yoann 2, Markus 2, Michael 1, Lars 1, PA 1
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