AH&BC Amsterdam will face Gantoise on Friday afternoon (14.30 CET) for the first ticket to next Easter’s EHL FINAL8 following their strong wins on day one at the EHL Men’s KO16 in Hamburg.

Amsterdam proved too good for Lille on their return to the competition after 11 years away, running up a 6-1 win.

They got underway with a lovely team goal, Matthew Dawson lifting an overhead to the Luke Dommershuijzen on the baseline and he picked a perfect pass to Boris Burkhardt to finish off on the back post.

Mirco Pruijser fired home a corner rebound to double the lead before Rupinder Pal Singh got the first of two corner goals with a rocket to the top corner. Burkhardt matched it in the third quarter with a fourth goal, again picking out the top corner postage stamp.

Singh added the fourth with low effort with 10 minutes to go before Dawson ripped in the second phase of another corner. Lille did get one back a nice tip-in goal via Antoine Bonomi, touching in Paul Piot’s cross.

In game two, a Roman Duvekot hat trick saw Gantoise advance to the KO8 where they will face AH&BC Amsterdam for a place in next Easter’s FINAL8 as they won well against Rotweiss Wettingen 7-0.

Duvekot opened the scoring when a powerful Antoine Kina pass broke his was in mid-circle and he swooped first time to net. He was on hand to finish off the next just a couple of seconds into the second quarter with Kina again making the initial inroads.

And his triple was complete four minutes into the second half with a sharp effort before Hughes Molenaer got in on the act with a powerful first time strike. Luke Madeley’s corner scrambled over the line to make it five before a Sean Murray stroke and a final goal from Timothée Clément completed the win.

Rotweiss will play Lille MHC in their ranking match on Friday (12.15 CET).