Lada boost quarter-final hopes with clear win

Handball Club Lada boosted their hopes of reaching the quarter-final of the Women's EHF Cup considerably by defeating SG BBM Bietigheim 30:25 at home on Saturday in group D.

Bietigheim led by two goals at the start of the second half, but a great comeback in the last 13 minutes secured Lada a clear win.

• Lada are at least temporarily second with four points, while Bietigheim are last with three

• Lada only allowed Bietigheim to score one goal in the last eight-and-a-half minutes of the match

• for the fifth EHF Cup match in a row, Elena Mikhaylichenko top-scored for Lada, this time with eight goals

• Laura Van der Heijden scored six times for Bietigheim

GROUP D
Handball Club Lada (RUS) vs SG BBM Bietigheim (GER) 30:25 (12:14)

Lada gave their quarter-final hopes a considerable boost, as an excellent last 13 minutes earned them a five-goal win at home against Bietigheim.

The match was equal throughout the first half, with no more than two goals separating the two teams at any stage.

Yet it was Bietigheim who had the upper hand, and they were the team who had a few two-goal leads in the first 30 minutes.

.@LadaToglatti rounded off their #ehfcup win against @sgbbm with a beautifully worked team goal for an in-flight finish by top-scorer Elena Mikhaylichenko. pic.twitter.com/YEoFft21nI

— EHF European Cup (@ehf_ec) February 1, 2020

As Bietigheim's most effective shooter on the day, Laura Van der Heijden, created the first three-goal distance two minutes into the second half, making it 16:13 for Bietigheim, the visitors seemed to be on their way to deciding the match.

However, Lada came back and with 13 minutes left, Natalia Reshetnikova equalised at 22:22.

With nine minutes left, Olga Fomina made it a two-goal lead at 25:23, and after Mikhaylichenko made it 27:24 with six minutes left, Bietigheim were unable to answer back.

Lada coach Aleksey Alekseev believes that the teams in group D are equally matched. He said: "I think that all the teams in our group are equal. We all have chances."

We had a very good beginning. We played normally in the first half of the match, but the last 15 minutes Lada was much better. We were unlucky today," said SG BBM Bietigheim coach Martin Albertsen.