Underdogs bite back

Juhlin (left) celebrates his second goal of the night with team-mate Rolf Ziegler Keystone

Bern ice hockey club fought their way back into playoff contention on Saturday, after winning their second semi-final match against Lugano 3-1.

Trailing 1-0 in the best-of-seven series coming into Saturday’s game, Pekka Rautakallio’s side succeeded in levelling the tie with a confident display.

Despite having lost the services of influential Swedish defender Fredrik Olausson, the team from the Swiss capital looked solid in defence and wasted little time in opening a lead.

Two first period goals from Patrik Juhlin, another of Bern’s Swedish contingent, left Lugano struggling to reply. The nearest Jim Koleff’s side came in the second period was a shot which skimmed Renato Tosio’s goal-line but failed to go in.

In the final period the Ticinese team finally found the net, Swiss-Canadian forward Misko Antisin making it 2-1 with 13 minutes to go. But as Lugano pushed up in search of a late equaliser, Bern’s Alex Chatelain made sure of victory, firing a last minute strike into the visitors’ empty goal.

In the night’s other semi-final match, the Kloten Flyers came close to providing another upset, before succumbing in overtime to local rivals and defending champions, the Zurich Lions.

Kloten came back from 2-0 and 3-2 down to level the match at 3-3. But the Lions pounced once more 14 minutes into injury time, Mattia Baldi steering the puck in after knocking Kloten defender Mathias Wüst to the ice.

Wüst and his team have just three days to pick themselves up from a defeat which leaves them trailing 2-0 in the series. The third round gets underway on Tuesday.

swissinfo with agencies