Viborg and Zvezda leave no doubt

The first legs of the Women's Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals were close. The second legs were exactly the opposite.

On home ground neither Viborg HK nor Zvezda Zvenigorod left any doubt in the return matches against Rostov-Don and Byasen Trondheim.

After a 27:25 win in Russia, Viborg cruised to the final through a huge 34:19 victory at home, and Zvezda produced a win which was almost as big, as they defeated Byasen 38:27 at home in Zvenigorod and made it clear that the final will be a Danish-Russian encounter between Viborg and Zvezda.

Viborg HK (DEN) vs Rostov-Don (RUS) 34:19 (18:9)
First leg 27:25. Aggregate 61:44

Rostov-Don managed to catch up with their two goal deficit from the first match once, as they were leading 4:2 early in the return match in Viborg Stadionhal.

However, the Russian lead was soon neutralised and changed into a 6:4 lead for the hosts who never looked back.

“We will have to run a lot for each other and help each other a lot,” Viborg´s right back Louise Burgaard said before the match, and running was what the hosts did, and it worked.

The 1,652 spectators saw Viborg increase to 13:6, and at half time the lead was increased to nine goals at 18:9.

In the second half Viborg soon managed to increase their lead to 12 goals, and even though head coach Christian Dalmose experimented in the last part of the match, the home team went on increasing their lead which ended up being 15 goals and 17 on aggregate.

Zvezda Zvenigorod (RUS) vs Byasen Trondheim (NOR) 39:27 (19:12)
First leg 27:26. Aggregate 66:53

Zvezda shocked their visitors from the start by getting an 8:2 lead in a hurry, and Byasen never really recovered from that. For the rest of the first half the home team was leading by five to seven goals, and seven goals was also the gap at half time.

Going nine goals down on aggregate from the start of the second half, Byasen seemed to have difficulties to continue believing in their chance to reach the final.

The Norwegian team managed to reduce the distance to four goals, but that was as close as they got, and the rest of the match was dominated completely by Zvezda who were leading by 14 goals before Byasen reduced a couple of times at the end.

“Unfortunately we had a bad start and were down 8:2 after 10 minutes. Therefore the match became difficult and we had to play with high risk. We were close to benefitting from that early in the second half, but through a missed penalty shot at the score 18:22 robbed us of any chance to get back into the game,” Byasen coach Claus Mogensen explained to his club´s website.

“Soon after they increased to 23:18, and from that point the gap was too big. We also have to realise that we were playing against two world class players, Postnova and Vyakhireva, whom we were unable to stop,” Claus Mogensen said.

With 10 goals, Liudmilla Postnova made her large contribution to the clear win, which sent Zvezda into the final against Viborg HK.