S. Korea beats Italy for 2nd win at women's hockey worlds

SEOUL, April 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has defeated host Italy for its second victory at the women's world hockey championship. South Korea, ranked 17th, edged out the 18th-ranked Italy 3-2 at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Women's World Championship Division I Group B tournament in Asiago, Italy, on Wednesday (local time), scoring two goals in the final three minutes of the contest. Defender Park Chae-lin set up the tying goal and netted the game winner, as South Korea improved to five points on one regulation win, one overtime win and one loss, good for fourth place among six nations with two matches remaining. South Korean captain Park Jong-ah opened the scoring for her team at 12:33 in the first period thanks to some great individual effort. South Korea dumped the puck deep into the Italian zone and applied some strong forechecking to keep it there. Then Park stripped Federica Zandegiacomo Mistrotofolo of the puck near the left point and danced her way into the slot before firing a wrist shot past goalie Giulia Mazzocchi. Less than two minutes later, Italy evened the score on a power-play goal by Nadia Mattivi, who slapped one home from just inside the right face-off circle. The teams remained deadlocked until Eleonora Dalpra scored a short-handed marker 2:02 into the third period. There was a momentary mix-up among South Korean players over the loose puck after Italy fired it deep into the South Korean zone, and Dalpra pounced on it and scored from between the circles. And just when South Korea appeared headed for a defeat, Randi Heesoo Griffin tied things up for South Korea at the 17:03 mark in the third, when she tipped in a point shot by Park Chae-lin. And then with 1:49 left in the game, Park found the back of the net herself, as her wrist shot through traffic beat Mazzocchi high on her glove side. The Division I Group B is the third-highest level of IIHF world championships. South Korea earned a promotion to this competition by winning the Division II Group A tournament last April. The winner of the Division I Group B competition will be promoted to the Division I Group A next year, but the last-place team won't suffer a relegation in 2019. South Korea earlier defeated Kazakhstan 2-1 in overtime and lost to China 2-1. It will face Latvia (No. 16) on Thursday and Poland (No. 22) on Saturday to wrap up the competition. South Korea had 20 shots compared with Italy's 18 and has outshot every opponent so far in this tournament. jeeho@yna.co.kr (END)