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Ranking

		gms	pts	w	l	otw	otl
1	Korea	5	12	3	0	1	1
2	Romania	5	12	4	1	0	0
3	Lithuania	5	11	3	1	1	0
4	Great Britain	5	5	1	3	1	0
5	Croatia	5	4	1	3	0	1
6	Netherlands	5	1	0	4	0	1

Results

04/04/12	Great Britain - Croatia	6 - 0
04/04/12	Lithuania - Netherlands	5 - 3
06/04/12	Croatia - Lithuania	0 - 6
06/04/12	Great Britain - Korea	3 - 4
06/04/12	Romania - Netherlands	10 - 5
...more rankings & results

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Ukraine wins opening match

Ukraine has won the first game of the World Championships Division I Group A in Tilburg. Ukraine defeated Lithuania 12-5. Kostiantyn Kasianchuk and Oleksandr Materukhin both scored twice for Ukraine.

Both teams from Eastern Europe provided the 250 spectators a very pleasant opening match. Ukraine was the better team as expected but Lithuania did not give up without a fight.

Oleg Materukhin scored the first goal of the tournament after almost four minutes. Materukhin scored on a rebound after goalie Arturis Kuzmicius could not control a shot by Oleg Shafarenko. After fiveteen minutes Ukraine doubled the lead. Andrei Mikhnov scored after a quick breakaway: 2-0.

Near the end of the first period, Lithuania got into penalty trouble. Ukraine took advantage just after the break. Sergi Varlamov made it 3-0 before Oleg Timchenko tallied the fourth goal . At the 22.25 mark, Lithuania got their first goal of the tournament. Tadas Kumeliauskas tallied for the team of head coach Rimantas Sidaravicius. The Lithuanians could not cheer for very long as Roman Salnikov made it 1-5 just ninety seconds later.

But then Lithuania performed a impressive comeback. Two more goals of Tadas Kumeliauskas and another one from Martynas Slikas made the deficit shrink to only one goal: 4-5. The 19-year old Kumeliauskas completed his first hattrick during a World Championship.

Both coaches were not satisfied after the game, both citing the difficult trip to Tilburg due to plane restrictions. 'We travelled about 48 hours, especially the older players really felt this. It was the younger guard that did a good job today, scoring a number of the goals. We will improve during the tournament, we need to show better team discipline.'

This sentiment was shared by his counterpart from Ukraine. 'I was happy with our offense, but the defense needs improvements. You cannot blame our goaltender too much due to defensive mistakes. We are going to work on this for the important games against Japan and Austria.'

Still Ukraine did not get nervous, and pulled of a two-goal lead before the end of the second period. Kostiantyn Kasianchuk scored on an assist by Andrei Mikhnov.

In the third and final period Ukraine increased the lead further. At the end of regulation, the final score ended at 12-5. The Lithuanian goalie Kuzmicius did made a couple of errors during this period. The 20-year old got the start instead of his more experienced Nerijus Dauksevicius who also plays for Energija Elektrenai. The goalscorers for Ukraine were Artem Bondariev,Oleg Shafarenko and Vadym Shakhraychuk. Kostiantyn Kasianchuk and Oleksandr Materukhin both got their second goal of the afternoon.

Dovydas Kulevicius scored the fifth and last goal for Lithuania. Ukraine will face the Netherlands tomorrow while Lithuania will meet against favorites Austria.

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Geplaatst door Remco Bambacht op 19-4-2010

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