Last Sunday the Vikings picked a bad day to be in bad shape – losing two games and missing the championship by 3 points.
In the first game of the day the Vikings faced second-seeded Herborn in a crucial match for this year’s Regionalliga championship – and lost 2-8 (2-4).
Either it was too early (8h30), too many skaters (a record high 9 Vikings) or just bad luck (4 goals against scored on deflections), but overall the Crocodiles deserved to win. They went up by two goals early, Wiesbaden getting back into the game by scoring two goals of their own in the first half – making it 1-2 and 2-3. But that was it for the Wiesbaden offense, as the Vikings were not able to score more goals in that game. Herborn played a solid game, converting many of their chances, creating goals from lucky bounces and cycling the puck for possession and with that win moved into first place of the standings, with a 2 points difference.
The Vikings absolutely needed a win in game two against Frankfurt to keep their chances alive to win the championship, but fell short again: 4-6 (2-3).
This game was much closer, Wiesbaden looking to take advantage of a short bench on Frankfurt’s side and the fact that they had back-to-back games. This worked in terms of puck control but somehow the puck did not end up in the net. Instead, the Mainprimaten capitalized on many of their chances and took the lead early in the game. Wiesbaden took many shots but needed far to many chances to score goals. Both teams traded goals over the course of the game, but Frankfurt kept the two-goal lead most of the time for the win.
In the next game of the day Herborn beat Kronberg in Overtime, therefore securing the Regionalliga title.
The game between Wiesbaden and the Crusaders was irrelevant for the standings but a nice finish to the inline season as the Vikings won 6-3 (2-2).
The win did not come easy – the Vikings were up 2-0 after five minutes but allowed two goals before the break. With one goal scored by each team within the first three minutes of the second period the game was tied 3-3 until the last minute. Chris Bräuning scored the eventual game winner for another hattrick with 53 seconds left, the Crusaders in turn pulled their goalie and allowed another goal at 14:51. The remaining 9 seconds then were enough to score another goal on the rush at the buzzer.
Despite falling short in the championship race this summer was a lot of fun and also with some individual success, as Chris Bräuning captured this year’s scoring title with 31 points (21 G – 10 A).
Congratulations to Herborn for winning the Regionalliga this time – the Vikings will be back next year.
