06.02.2010, 11:40
Victories for Györ, Valcea and Viborg

Three of the top favourites take the first Main Round hurdles.

Victories for Györ, Valcea and Viborg

Györ, Viborg and Valcea started well in the first match day of the Champions League Main Round. As Valcea didn’t have any problems to win at Hypo, Györ and Viborg had to fight hard for their first two points.

Group I:

Györi Audi ETO – Krim Ljubljana 25:23 (11:14)

Thanks to a brilliant second half, Györ defeated Ljubljana in a high tensioned match. Krim started better, was in lead 10:7 and kept this distance to the halftime result of 14:11. And the Slovenians surprised Györ right at the start of the second half, as they increased the distance to 17:11 by three consecutive goals. Thanks to their frenetic spectators and the saves of goalkeeper Katalin Palinger, Györ then started their full throttle: In between 14 minutes they equalized for the first time at the score of 20:20. The match turned completely, as the Hungarians went in lead 22:20 – the end of an outstanding 11:3 series after the 11:17. But Krim tried hard to keep at least one point and reduced to 23:24 – but then Anita Görbicz secured the victory with her third goal, as Bodnieva failed at the last Krim attack. Top scorers were Spiridoin and Mranikova (Györ) and Vergelyuk and Bodnieva (Krim) with each four goals.

Group II:

Hypo Niederösterreich – Oltchim Valcea 26:31 (13:18)

Oltchim remains in the favourite role in this CL season, as Hypo didn’t have the means to break the Romanian rhythm. Thanks to eight goals of Vizitiu, Oltchim secured two important points for their next objective, the semifinals. Top scorer of Hypo in a one sided match was Limal with seven goals. The Romanians lead from the very beginning, even as Hypo intermediately could reduce to 7:9. After the break the highly motivated team from Valcea improved again and decided the match at least in minute 45, when the distance was nine goals at the 25:16.

Dinamo Wolgograd – Viborg HK 29:30 (16:20)

Even 12 goals of Anna Kochetova weren’t enough for Wolgograd to beat the current title holder Viborg on home soil. For Dinamo it wasn’t only the first CL home defeat in this season – but even since 10. February 2007 . The Danish champion kept calm in the hot atmosphere in Russia and dominated the match right from the start. After the 10:5 Viborg went away to 14:7, before Wolgograd improved in defense, but still couldn’t come closer than to four goals at the break. In the second half both goalkeepers – Lunde and Sedojkina- showed their class, and as the Danes had some concentration problems in offense after the 23:17, Wolgograd reduced the gap again. In minute 45 Dinamo equalized at the score of 24:24 and four minutes later they took the lead for the first time (26:25).The final stage was full of tension, hectic and mistakes, but in the very end, Viborg was the lucky winner thanks to a last minute goal of Bojana Popovic (six goals in total) Top scorer for Viborg was Christina Varzaru with eight goals.

TEXT: Björn Pazen