A women's quartet, which is well known in the Erdinger district, wants to become German ice hockey champion with Ingolstadt.
Erding/Ingolstadt – The ice hockey season in the women's national league is entering the home straight, the playoff final has begun.
In the best-of-five series between ERC Ingolstadt and ECDC Memmingen it is 1:1.
Jessica Hammerl, Bernadette Karpf and Sorsha Sabus are three players in the ERCI who learned ice hockey basics at TSV Erding.
The fourth in the group, Celina Haider, has played in Dorfener and Erdinger offspring.
In the semifinals, Memmingen defeated Mannheim in four games, while Ingolstadt surprisingly threw the big favorites ESC Planegg out of the race in three games (1-0, 3-2, 2-1 after a penalty shoot-out).
"The fact that Planegg was first and we were fourth didn't bother me that much, because they are the best for us in terms of play," says Sabus, "but I didn't think that it would be possible with three wins." Especially for the series was very exhausting for the defenders, because the ERCI only had five defenders in the squad, and so Sabus and Tanja Eisenschmid always had to work double shifts.
An important factor was the goalkeeper.
Lisa Hemmerle, who only moved from Planegg to Ingolstadt in January, is holding up extremely well at the moment, "and really saved our butts at times," notes Haider.
"But we were simply stronger overall as a team." This is also confirmed by Karpf, who scored 1-0 in the third game and converted the decisive penalty against Franziska Albl, also a former Erdinger, to make it 2-1.
"It was a cool feeling to have decided the game," she says happily, but doesn't forget her comrades-in-arms: "Without a strong team behind me, I couldn't play the way I'm doing right now."
In the final series, game one went to Memmingen 3-2 after extra time – the goal didn't come until the 74th minute.
"We clearly had the better chances in overtime, but we just didn't score the decisive goal and that costs you the game," says Haider angrily.
Ingolstadt won the second game 3:1, Sabus scored to make it 1:0, and Karpf shot into the empty goal in the last second to make it 3:1.
"That alone was an incentive that we were allowed to play in the Saturn Arena right after the Ingolstadt DEL game," says Sabus.
"We usually play in front of 50 to 100 spectators, there were a good 700 there." Like the first game, "the chances of game two were relatively even," says Haider.
"But luckily we were able to win this time." Sabus doesn't mind that it was relatively tough.
"It's well known that Memmingen sometimes plays dirty and harder, that's part of the playoffs," she knows.
"You have to have the emotions under control."
Game three takes place on Saturday (5.15 p.m.) in Memmingen, game four on Sunday (2.30 p.m.) in Ingolstadt.
"We know about the strengths and weaknesses of the Memmingers and will not give them any room to play," announces Haider.
"I'm very confident that we can achieve two wins and become German champions on Sunday."