Rostov-Don and Larvik book their places in the next round

Rostov-Don and Larvik both removed the last doubt about their entry into the main round Saturday, but both teams had to work hard for their home wins.

HCM Baia Mare were leading several times away against Rostov-Don before the Russian champions managed to win 27:26.

RK Krim Mercators were in the lead for great parts of the first half in Norway until Larvik managed to live up to expectations and win 32:28.

GROUP A
Rostov-Don (RUS) vs HCM Baia Mare (ROU) 27:26 (14:15)

Rostov-Don took their fourth win out of four, but they had to work hard for their narrow 27:26 win at home against Baia Mare Saturday afternoon.

Baia Mare kept the match equal almost all the way and if Rostov-Don coach Jan Leslie had not replaced Katrine Lunde by Anna Sedoykina with a quarter of an hour left then the visitors might very well have taken at least one point with them home to Romania.

Rostov-Don opened the match by taking a two goal lead, but this was definitely no signal to any dominance by the home team.

Led on by a brilliantly playing centre back Allison Pineau Baia Mare managed to keep up with the Russian champions and even take several one goal leads along the way.

Apart from being dangerous with her own shots and scoring ten goals Pineau was also able to put so much pressure on the Rostov-Don defence that the hosts' defence formation became considerably more flat than Jan Leslie would have liked.

Two penalty saves by Paula Ungureanu also contributed to Baia Mare leading 15:14 at half-time.

The pattern was the same during the first quarter of an hour of the second half and it was not until Sedoykina replaced Lunde in the Russian goal were Rostov-Don able to decide the match.

The saves, with which the 31-year-old goalkeeper opened her appearance, enabled Rostov-Don to take their first three-goal lead in the match at 25:22 with eight minutes and two seconds left.

The home team also got four goals up at 26:22 and a bit later at 27:23.

Baia Mare were then able to score the last three goals of the match but those had only limited significance as the last one was scored with only four seconds left

While Allison Pineau scored ten times for Baia Mare Rostov-Don were boosted by  right wing Juliia Managarova who scored six goals.

Larvik (NOR) vs RK Krim Mercator (SLO) 32:28 (17:15)

After Larvik's 37:21 win in Slovenia only just over a week earlier the match in the Arena Larvik this Saturday evening looked like a formality.

However, in front of 1,710 spectators, Krim turned the game into something completely different as they proved able to challenge the Norwegian favourites through most of the 60 minutes.

Larvik were resting Nora Mørk, who is still nursing ankle problems, and after 6 minutes they lost Anja Hammerseng-Edin who injured her ankle.

This did not stop the home team for scoring plenty of goals and neither did the fact that Krim were practicing man-to-man defence on Amanda Kurtovic from the start, but scoring goals was a just as easy job for the visitors.

After Larvik had opened the match with a few two-goal leads Krim changed a 5:3 deficit into a 7:5 lead and later the guests even got four goals up at 13:9, before Larvik came back and took a two-goal lead at half-time.

Way into the second half Krim were still able to hang in, but despite another accident as Thea Mørk dislocated her shoulder eight minutes into the half, Larvik created the deciding distance at last.

In spite of being subject to man-to-man defence for large parts of the match, Amanda Kurtovic scored ten goals for Larvik, while the Bulgarian centre back Elizabeth Omoregie scored nine times for Krim.