We’ve secured our place in the next round of the Hungarian Cup!

The second leg of the first round of the Hungarian Cup took place on Tuesday evening; our team travelled to Jászberény, where Lehel HC were waiting for us. We’d secured a 6–3 victory in our home match, so we took to the ice with a 3-point lead, but we knew that even so, securing our place in the next round would be no walk in the park.

The first half of the first period saw no goals, but you could sense that the home side were doing everything they could to chip away at our lead. They came close to doing so in the 12th minute whilst on the power play, when Prilutskii received a fine pass, after which he had a clear shot at Róth’s goal and made no mistake (1–0). Two minutes before the whistle, with both teams at full strength, Sebestyén Csata broke away with the puck and passed to **Márk Nagy, who was in a clear position, and he fired the puck into the bottom left corner with surgical precision (1–1).

In the second period, we managed to pick up the pace and the game changed; we created a string of dangerous chances, but we couldn’t score. We had to wait until the end of the 36th minute for that: whilst a man down, we launched a dynamic counter-attack led by the scorer of our previous goal, Márk Nagy, who played a beautiful pass to Benedek Madácsi arriving in the centre, leaving the home side’s goalkeeper with no chance (1–2). There were no further goals in the half, so the lads went into the break with a four-point lead.

Most of the third period passed without incident; the real excitement was saved for the final minutes: in the 57th minute, Pinczés capitalised on a lapse in concentration by our defence and scored the equaliser (2–2). A few seconds later, István Szűcs was shown a controversial red card, after which Szilárd Rusznyák, the home side’s head coach, immediately called for a time-out. Although they had to make up a three-goal deficit in just three minutes, it was clear that the Jászberény side would do everything in their power to pull off a miracle. Pulling their goalkeeper, they attacked with a 6-4 formation and managed to convert their advantage into a goal, with another foreign player, Popov, finding the net (3–2). As Botond Fekete had also picked up a two-minute penalty in the meantime, we called a time-out. We defended the final two minutes of the match a man down, but this time the home side were unable to find a way through our defence.

**Although the team from Jászberény won the match, we triumphed in the tie on an 8–6 aggregate score, meaning we have progressed to the second round of the Hungarian Cup.

The next matches in the cup will take place on 12 and 26 November; our opponents will be drawn at a later date.**

Come on, UNI GYŐR ETO!

UNI GYŐR ETO HC vs Lehel HC: 2 – 3 (MK I-2) Goal scorers: **#86 Márk Nagy, #18 Benedek Madácsi (UNI GYŐR ETO) **#79 Prilustkii, #11 Pinczés, #97 Popov (Lehel)

We’ve put together a selection of the best photos from the match in our gallery:

Photo: Balázs Gémesi