Two home victories, Samobor close to final

The Women´s Challenge Cup 2012/13 seems to be heading to Croatian-Turkish final match after the first leg of the semi-finals last weekend. However everything remains still open, since eight-goal deficit of Höör from Samobor and four-goal gap of Most from Istanbul could be erased in the next weekend´s second leg (13-14 April).

Fantasyland Samobor (CRO) vs H65 Höör (SWE) 25:17 (12:9)

After Höör eliminated double winners of the Challenge Cup from Nimes in the previous round, the Swedish team were favourites on the paper, but they suffered a heavy defeat in Croatia.

Although the second best scorer of the competition Jasmina Djapanović added six goals to her tally (50 goals), the home team were inspired by a great twelve goal effort by a left wing Tea Golubić.

Üsküdar BSK (TUR) vs DHK Baník Most (CZE) 31:27 (15:14)

While the top scorer of the Challenge Cup Hana Martinková was well-guarded and held at four goals by Üsküdar´s defence, Yeliz Özel was a secret weapon of Istanbul-based team in the first leg clash as the Czech team had no video of opponents with her on the court in their preparation. She took an advantage of it and led her side with nine goals. “She was fantastic,” the coach of Baník Dušan Poloz had to admit for idnes.cz website.

“We were just catching up with them the whole match, but we have scored 27 goals and that is quite a lot. We hope this could play its role at the final counting – no team have scored that many against us this season. As we are able to play better than we did in Istanbul, our chance is still big,” Poloz added.

Photo: Dora Trošelj