JAPAN, arguably the darling of this year's FIL World
Championships in Manchester, were forced to work hard for their
semi-final place.
The Japanese, sixth place finishers in Ontario four years ago, found
themselves 3-1 down to the Netherlands but fought back to clinch a 14-8
victory.
And with their win will now play the United States in the second of
this year's semi-finals, with face-off at 7.30pm on the main stadium
pitch.
Kyle van Oostendorp top-scored with four goals for the Netherlands -
the Grey Division runners-up - with Alex Jones and Graham Bergsma were
also on target.
But Japan netted eight goals in a row from 8-6 down to keep their medal hopes very much alive.
Mikisuke Sekine, Fumiaki Ogiwara and Yusuke Sahoda all netted
hat-tricks, Masayuki Kadota bagged a brace and Shinya Maruyama, Gen
Hasegawa and Ken Ikegawa completed the scoring.
Despite being slow out of the blocks, Japan won the opening quarter
5-3, only to trail 7-6 at half-time as their opponents stormed the
quarter 4-1.
Japan hit back to win
the next quarter 3-1 and ran away with the decider 4-0 to set-up a
mouth-watering clash with the eight-time champions.
