On the Friday of the Whitsun weekend, the KIT floorball team set off for this year's adhOpen Floorball near Hanover, more precisely in the cozy town of Algesdorf. After last year's victory in their own hall, the reigning champions started the tournament on Saturday morning after a long journey, a cozy evening with the other teams who had arrived early and a first night in the gym.

The first match in the preliminary round was against the team from Göttingen. In the following game against Gießen, the score remained even for a long time, but in the last hard-fought minutes, the Karlsruhe team was able to pull away by 2 goals and win the second game of the preliminary round 8:6. The final game of the day was played directly afterwards against the group favorites from Halle, who had arrived with a strong squad. Here, however, the team from Karlsruhe had to admit that Halle also knew how to play floorball excellently and they were ultimately beaten 14:7. However, thanks to the two games they had won beforehand, they still qualified for the semi-finals as group runners-up directly behind Halle. The evening ended with a superbly organized event with a barbecue and subsequent party.

The next day, it was all or nothing and the team from Constance, the group winners of the other group, faced off. After a short night, the anticipation of playing sport again was nevertheless great and they got into the game surprisingly well. With a great team performance and a clear 13:6 victory, they were able to prevail and advance to the final against the winner of the other semi-final. Their opponents in the final, Halle, had also clearly prevailed in the second semi-final and so there was an opportunity for revenge. In the final game, they quickly fell behind by two goals, but were able to keep their heads and not only managed to catch up during the course of the game, but even took the lead and so it was 8:6 for the floorballers from Karlsruhe with one minute to go. The game became rougher and the team faced Hall's top formation time and again. Unfortunately, they were able to withstand the pressure as the clock ran down and took advantage of a moment of inattention by the Karlsruhe defense to score the final goal. Karlsruhe, still with its head on the last goal, then lost the bullie and conceded the equalizer immediately afterwards. As a result, the game went into extra time after the final seconds of regulation time, in which the team from Halle prevailed in a tough battle and won the final and thus the title with a final score of 9:8.

Unfortunately, the Karlsruhe floorballers did not manage to defend their previous year's title, but the team still put in a great performance and can return home with an excellent 2nd place.

We would like to thank University Sports Hannover and all the helpers who made this tournament possible and look forward to the next university championship in floorball!

The other results can be found here: https://www.tournify.de/live/adhopenfloorball2024