Strong finish secures Baia Mare victory over RK Krim Mercator

HCM Baia Mare completed a perfect Friday night for Romanian handball in the Women´s EHF Champions League.

However, they had to work hard to emulate CSM Bucuresti´s success earlier on Friday night to win 33:27 away in Group A against a tough Slovenian side who trailed by a single goal at half-time.

RK Krim Mercator (SLO) vs HCM Baia Mare (ROU) 27:33 (15:16)

Krim coach, Marta Bon, named Baia Mare favourites for the encounter before the match and this was probably not just a trick in order to take the pressure away from her own young team.

In most people´s minds, the Romanian side were most likely to win against an internationally inexperienced Slovenian club.

However, the home team showed an impressive positive attitude, and their high spirits was rewarded for large periods of the match.

Krim got off a fine start and built up a couple of two-goal leads within the first quarter of an hour.

The hosts even managed to keep the game level throughout the high-scoring first half, in which both teams focused much more on attack than on defence.

Tamara Mavsar, who plays on the left wing for Krim, said: "I think today we lost the game in the first 10 minutes after half-time.

"We should have calmed down the game then but we didn't. I think the six-goal difference is unfair, but despite losing we are looking positive for our next matches."

From the start of the second half, Baia Mare seemed to have the game under control, and just two and half minutes after the break, Marta Bon felt it necessary to call a time-out.

At that point, the visitors had scored three unanswered goals and were leading 19:15.

Baia Mare continued to dominate increasing their lead to six goals at 24:18, but to Krim's credit they refused to give up.

With ten minutes left, the Slovenian champions had reduced the deficit to two goals again, 25:23, and from then on, Krim managed to hang on for most of the rest of the match.

The result was not finally decided until Lois Abbingh scored a penalty to make it 30:26 with just two and a half minutes left to play.

Katarina Jezic, Baia Mare's line player, said: "Today's match broke the ice for us. In the first half we played a little bit worse but at half-time we made an agreement what we needed to change and we implemented that.

"I think what we showed today was not our maximum and I think we will be better in the future."

Left winger, Tamara Mavsar, top-scored with 12 goals for Krim, whilst Lois Abbingh and Allison Pineau scored nine each for Baia Mare.