After dramatic wins over Sweden, Croatia, and Portugal, Ireland's hopes of winning Pool A at the EuroHockey Indoor Championship II — and of securing promotion — nevertheless took a fierce blow after a 5-5 draw with Slovakia.
Ireland went into their final pool match of the tournament trailing leaders Lithuania by 2 points with a simple mission: nothing less than a win over Lithuania would be good enough to secure promotion to the top tier of European Indoor Hockey. But it was off to a slow start as there was no scoring at all in the first quarter —all the goals in this game came in the hectic final 10 minutes.
Dovile Juraite opened the scoring for Lithuania in the 20th minute and Lithuania led 1-0 at half time. Orla Fox converted a penalty corner to get Ireland on level terms in the 31st minute. The score was 1-1, but a final result like this would have given Lithuania the title.
Lithuania's hero Dovile Juraite quickly became a villain. She was yellow carded in 32nd minute and Ireland fired in a few goals while her team were shorthanded. Chloe Brown converted the penalty corner in the 32nd minute to make it 2-1 to Ireland. Teenager Milla Fulton scored from open play in the 34th minute to make it 3-1 to Ireland. Chloe Brown converted her second penalty corner of the day to make it 4-1 to Ireland in the 35th minute and in the 39th minute Ireland were awarded a penalty stroke which Orla Fox converted to make the final score 5-1.
This put Ireland in first place by one point and secured the gold medal in this tournament plus the right to play in the higher echelon of European Indoor Hockey in the next tournament.
