Team Philippines earned a respectable 3rd place finish after bowing to the Tokyo Mavericks, 3-1 in the semifinals of the 2015 Hong Kong Hockey 5’S international tournament held at Mega Ice Rink in Hong Kong.
The RP squad showed cohesiveness at the start of the first period and battled Tokyo tooth and nail in the second period.
The Mavericks drew first blood in the third period and after a few minutes of slam bang action, the Pinoy skaters evened things up at 1-1.
The Philippines had some Grade A chances to pull through but couldn’t beat the Tokyo goalie, who was solid in net.
In the ensuing play, the Mavericks peppered the Philippines several point blank shots that forced the latter to commit a penalty.
Tokyo cashed in on their power play to pull ahead at 2-1 with seven minutes remaining in the last period, when RP goalie Paolo Spafford didn’t see the shot from the point.
A costly error on the blue line dashed some hopes for the Philippines that led to a two-on-one breakaway for the Mavericks skaters and iced the game with a minute left.
The RP team is composed of Spafford, Miguel Ralampagos, Jorell Crisostomo, David Samson, Julian Santiago, Julius Santiago, Pierre Navasero, Daniel Mendoza Pastrana, Danilo Mendoza Pastrana, Jeff Hancock, Georgino Orda, Brian Wong, Francois Gauthier, Roach Garrucho, Carl Montano, Steven Fuglister, and BJ Imperial.
The Philippine team started their campaign in this annual tourney on a bright note after drubbing Sammi’s Superstar, 4-2.
They immediately followed it up with a convincing shutout win over the Hockey Panda, 15-0 and finished their round robin outings with a 4-1 victory over the Ice Wolves.
In the quarterfinals, the Pinoy skaters needed a 5-4 shootout win over Sammi’s Superstar to earn the right to face Tokyo in the semifinals.
On the other hand, the Mavericks had two impressive shut out wins over the Bravo, 10-0 and the Qatar ORYX, 3-0.
Unfortunately for the Tokyo squad, they didn’t have the firepower in the finals after surrendering a 1-0 shutout loss to the Golden Club.
