Czech Republic secure ticket to play-offs

Czech Republic secure Group 5’s ticket to play-offs for the World Championship 2017 with a six-goal win against Turkey, and Romania narrowly defeat Italy in their final matches of qualification stage one.  

GROUP 2
Italy vs Romania 28:30 (16:15)

Romania recorded their second World Championship 2017 Qualification win of the week with a narrow final score line against Italy – but they will not be celebrating yet. 

Though they move up to 10 points with the victory, they must wait for the result of Austria’s game against Finland on Sunday to know their fate. 

Romania must have breathed a sigh of relief at the final whistle however, as they went into half-time with a one-goal deficit and had to fight hard to take the lead in the second half. 

With just over 10 minutes remaining Italy were in front by two, as they had been for most of the second half, but a goal from Valentin Ghionea, who contributed eight in total to be the top scorer of the match, signalled a change in the tide. 

From that point Romania were steadily in front, and though Italy came within one inside the last minute, they could not level the score and Romania hit the net one more time to seal the victory. 

GROUP 5
Czech Republic vs Turkey 34:28 (17:16)

With a place in the play-offs up for grabs it was a tense game from start to finish, with three red cards in total. Czech Republic needed to win by four goals to advance to the next phase, and Turkey did everything they could to prevent them from achieving their goal. 

Turkey’s star Ramazan Döne scored a huge 11 goals, but he also received one of the match’s three red cards after three two-minute suspensions. His disqualification did not affect the outcome of the game however – at that point it was essentially over as Czech Republic led 31:25 and there were less than seven minutes on the clock. 

For Turkey it was a frustrating second half. After chasing through most of the first period and successfully closing the gap to a one-goal difference by half-time, they let Czech Republic get away as soon as the match resumed. 

Jakub Hrstka, who was Czech’s top scorer with eight goals, scored two in a row and suddenly Turkey were in trouble again. 

A run of goals from the hosts put them in front 22:16 by the 38th minute, and that is where the score line stayed until the final whistle. 

Czech Republic qualify for the play-offs to the World Championship 2017 with the victory.