KO16: Waterloo Ducks HC – Surbiton HC

Match report

KO16: Waterloo Ducks 1 Surbiton 1 (1-1), Waterloo win shoot-out 4-2
Waterloo Ducks won through to the KO8 of the EHL with a dramatic shoot-out win over England’s Surbiton.

It was a very tight contest throughout with precious little between the teams but it was Surbiton who hit the front midway through the second quarter when Ben Boon got free down the right, playing the ball to the baseline where it was returned into the path for David Goodfield to finish.

Within three minutes, though, Waterloo were back on terms with Renaud Pangrazio nicking in to steal the ball from a loose cross-field pass. He wriggled away from the last defender to slam home a brilliant rising reverse-stick shot by Harry Gibson.

And that was the way is stayed through the second half, leading to a shoot-out. There, Gauthier Boccard scored and Vincent Vanasch made a brilliant save in the first round for an early lead.

In round two, Gibson saved from Gougnard while Zach Wallace was unfortunate as a hooter malfunction denied him an equaliser. From the reset shoot-out, Vanasch came out on top.

The Ducks scored their next three shoot-outs and it meant they prevailed 4-2 despite good finishes from Alan Forsyth and David Goodfield.

It puts them through to a KO8 game with KHC Dragons on Saturday, a rematch of their Belgian playoff of last Sunday which the Antwerp side won 4-1.

“Now we have the chance for revenge against Dragons which will be fun,” Elliot van Strydonck said of that encounter. “The first thing from last Sunday, we had to show more fight, we didn’t play with our hearts. We will have to show more of what we did today, tactically and physically we have to go for every 50-50 to make the difference.

“Today, we knew we were up against a tough team with the English style of fighting until the end. They played quite well and we had a sh*t game in our last game before here in the Belgian quarter-final against Dragons. This week was going to be crucial for our upcoming weeks so winning today was the first step!”

Van Strydonck is a former EHL winner from this time as an Oranje-Zwart player and he added that it was great to back at the club where he has many good memories.

“it’s always nice to be back here; there’s so many nice people in the club on and off the pitch and I learned a lot in my years when we won almost everything. It’s a famous club, the best for me in Holland and always nice to be here.”