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Sunday, March 26, 2000, updated at 10:48(GMT+8) Sports China loses to Hungary 2-3 in top three play-offChina narrowly missed the chance to win its maiden Pool C championship after a 3-2 loss to Hungary at the World Ice Hockey Pool C Championships in Beijing Saturday night. Hungary jumped to a 2-0 lead in the opening period through Palkovics Krisztian and Orso Laszlo. China, inspired by a host crowd of about 12,000, made up the deficit as Zhang Lei scored a power-play goal at 23:46 and Pan Zhiqiang added another at 31:16. However, Szelig Viktor beat Chinese goalie Liu Xue with a slap shot 1:25 after Pan's goal to make Hungary lead 3-2 at the end of the second period. The Chinese tried all out to find an equalizer in the third but failed to find the net with 15 shots. ``We did well in the second and third periods," said Chinese head coach Wang Jingang. "We've got a chance to win, but we did not grasp it." China finished its top-three round-robin matches with two points from a win and a loss. Hungary had two points with a match left against Croatia, in which they have a big chance to win. In the day's other match, Lithunia downed South Korea 8-3 in a match to decide the fourth to sixth places and Spain drew with Yugoslavia 1-1 in a seventh-to-ninth play-off. Printer-friendly Version In This SectionBack to top |
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