Bronze: Great Britain vs. Australia 3-7 (2-3, 0-1, 1-2, 0-1)
After silver last year Australia won the Division I bronze medals in Bratislava after beating Great Britain 7-3 for third place.
The British came back to tie the game at two but when Australia got the lead again the team from Down Under didn’t give it away anymore. Six different players scored the goals for Australia including Jordan Gavin with two markers. They outshot Great Britain 25-22.
Gavin brought Australia on the scoreboard with his power-play marker at 4:10 and 100 seconds later Cameron Todd made it a two- goal lead for Australia.
The British fought back and tied the game with goals from Nathan Finney and Alex Kingston scored within a span of just 16 seconds late in the period but 20 seconds later Matthew Anderson hit the back of the net on the other side for Australia’s 3-2 period lead.
Australia had a strong second period that was rewarded with Gavin’s 4-2 goal that eventually turned out to become the game-winner.
Ben Lowe brought GB back within one goal scoring at 2:21 of the third period but a power-play goal from Michael Haynes and another marker from Steve Best gave Australia a 5-3 period lead and forced Great Britain to change goalies. Miles Finney left, Alex Birch came in. But at 1:28 of the fourth period Sean Jones also beat him with the 7-3 goal.
The fourth period was overshadowed with the injury of Joshua Yeardley. At 1:54 the British player suffered an injury at the boards and had to be taken off the field on a stretcher after stabilizing the neck area. Luckily he was able to move all parts of his body but was brought to hospital with concussion symptoms. Australia’s Jayden Ryan was assessed a major penalty for boarding.
Great Britain tried to score after the shock and pulled the goalie but Australia’s 7-3 lead stayed until the end.
Photo credit: Rene Miko.