Grange fourth and Watsonians fifth – that`s how the Euros finished
Watsonians 4-2 Slavia Prague (Czech Republic)
Watsonians made the best of starts to their fifth place play-off with three goals in the opening quarter.
Mairi Drummond opened the scoring inside the first minute; teenager Jess Garden added a second four minutes later; and in the ninth minute Emily Dark sunk a penalty corner – three up in nine minutes was not bad going.
The Scots had a couple of penalty corner chances in the second quarter but there was no change to the tally by the interval.
Slavia returned to the contest early in the second half through goals from Nikol Babicka and Linda Nova – and suddenly the lead was cut to a single goal.
In the final quarter Watsonians had three further penalty corners with no success, but with five minutes left the Czechs lost a little discipline with two players visiting the sin bin. The Scottish champions took full advantage and Sarah Jamieson fired home a fourth to seal a creditable fifth spot in Hamburg.
A positive Keith Smith said: “We`re very happy with the placing given we`ve finished two places above our ranking, and achieved our aim for the tournament. What`s even better though is how great it`s been for our development, to see how well elements of our game have measured up at this level, and the enthusiasm it`s inspired in everyone is to keep improving as a result.”
Grange 3-3(1-3) Arminen (AUSTRIA)
The first quarter was goalless but the Austrians went ahead on either side of half-time through Robert Bele and Robert Campe at a penalty corner.
Not long after Aidan McQuade departed the pitch with a yellow card and almost immediately Livio Belotti pulled one back for Grange at a penalty corner.
It looked curtains for Grange when Florian Hackl made it 3-1 for Arminen with ten minutes left. But Grange were not to be denied, at successive penalty corners Dylan Bean and then David Nairn levelled with three minutes remaining after Grange coach Steve Grubb had replaced his keeper with an additional outfield player…and on to the shoot-out for the bronze medal.
It started promising enough with Jamie Green scoring with the first attempt but Dylan Bean, David Nairn and Joe Waterston then proceeded to miss and Arminen took the bronze with a 3-1 win.
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