Women’s CL summary, Main Round

The semi-finals are set with the last games of the Women’s EHF CL Main Round played over the weekend. Two teams of last season’s best four teams will play for the final again – and meet each other: Hypo Niederösterreich and Győri Audi ETO.

As the Hungarians will play their third CL semi-finals in a row, they want to reach the final four the first time in the history of the club.

In the other semi-final, Viborg HK (CL winner of 2006) will meet the Romanians from Oltchim Valcea who reached this far for the first time ever.

Viborg (beating Hypo 33:31) and Győr (winning 30:28 against Valcea) won the last and decisive top matches of their groups.

Group 1

Viborg HK – Hypo Niederösterreich 33:31 (14:14)

An outstanding German international, Grit Jurack (new number one in the CL top scorer list) brought Viborg HK the victory in Group 1 – and the semi-final against Romanians from Oltchim Valcea. Jurack scored 12 times against Hypo and paved the way to the decisive victory.

Hypo had won the first match in Austria by 30:28, but due to the CL regulations Viborg are number one due to a better overall goal difference.

The match between the two strongest teams of this season’s competition was played on world class level and it was very tense until the very end. Jurack was the most powerful player in the beginning as she had scored six goals in the first eight minutes.

Viborg were in the lead at 14:12, before Hypo with the strong performances of Tóth and Oh, could equalise until the break. Afterwards the match was equal with slight advantages for Viborg that took the lead with two goals for the first time at 22:20. But Hypo fought hard – and Jurack had to decide the match with six of the last eight goals for Viborg. The best scorer of Hypo was Tóth with seven goals.

Podravka Koprivnica – Ikast-Brande 36:26 (18:10)

As Podravka and Ikast were eliminated from the semi-finals before the last match day, the game was played without much tension. Podravka, however, wanted to finish the competition with a victory. And as Ikast had to miss a lot of key players, it was easy for the Croatians to get a very clear result.

The best scorers were Mette Sjöberg with eight goals for Ikast and Franic with seven goals for Podravka. After minute 20, when the result was 12:7, Koprivnica extended the lead goal by goal, as Ikast didn’t have the individual class to resist the Croatians.

Podravka played on full speed and had a better defence. The match was decided very early, and the biggest lead for Podravka was 27:14 in the 43rd minute.

“My team learned a lot in the Champions League,” Ikast coach Kenneth Jensen said. “As we missed seven players, we knew that we didn’t have a chance in Koprivnica. But the difference was too much as we missed too many good chances.”

As Podravka celebrated their second victory in the main round, Ikast remained pointless at the end.

Group 2

Győri Audi ETO – Oltchim Valcea 30:28 (15:13)

A draw would have been enough to win Group 2, but Győr wanted the victory against Valcea. Already at the very beginning the Hungarians showed more fighting spirit – and had the better defence including a strong goalkeeper, Katalin Pálinger.

But even as Valcea took the lead in the middle of the first half, Győr were better. Especially Hornyák, Görbicz and Tomori scored great goals.

Four minutes before the end, Győr seemed to be winning the game by four goals, but Valcea came back and reduced the gap to 29:28. Then Tomori decided the match with the last of her eight goals. In addition, the reserve goalkeeper of Győr, Orsolya Herr, made very important saves after the break.

The best scorer of Valcea, that will meet Viborg in the semi-finals, was Puscasu with six goals. Györ will play against Hypo.

Győr coach Csaba Konkoly said:

“We made mistakes again, but our supporters chased us to a victory at the end. This was made possible by Tomori, who made genius things in attack, and Orsolya Herr, who showed excellent saves in the most important moments.”

Buducnost Podgorica – Krim Ljubljana 37:32 (19:16)

The 69 goals scored speak volumes about the speed and the strength of the attacking game at the match between Buducnost and Krim. The two clubs said goodbye to the competition with an entertaining game.

By winning the match the Montenegrins took the Slovenians over in the ranking with five points in the end (Krim remain with four).

Katarina Bulatovic showed her quality by scoring nine times for Buducnost; the best scorer for Krim was Tanja Oder with six goals.

“We wanted to win, but we also want to prepare for the next season. We were highly motivated, but we lost ran out of energy at the end,” Krim coach Martha Bon said.