Budućnost complete their march
Budućnost continued their sensational march in the Main Round on home turf in Podgorica: coach Dragan Adžić´s team took their sixth straight victory, whilst Oltchim lost the second time to the Montenegrins within the Main Round phase, but still advance to the Top4.
The semi-final duels on the first two April weekends are as follows: Győri Audi ETO will take on C.S. Oltchim Rm. Vâlcea and Budućnost play against Larvik.
Group 2
Budućnost (MNE) vs. C.S. Oltchim Rm. Vâlcea (ROU) 31:25 (17:15)
With nothing at stake in the group, it were the hosts who went into the match as the more motivated team from the early minutes on, with Adžić’s team surging into a dream start of 3:0.
In that phase Budućnost’s Clara Woltering played out of her skin producing heroics between the sticks.
The Romanian defence started to really click, enabling them to run at Budućnost with fast breaks through the speedy Iuliia Managarova and suddenly they were leading by a single-goal after 19 minutes.
Sharpshooter Katarina Bulatović calmly scored from the back positions and also from the 7m line, so Bojana Popović and her team-mates staged a fantastic comeback, tightening their defence and with Milena Knežević´s vital goals turned the result and increased the lead to two goals after 30 minutes.
In the second half German international Woltering remained steadfast in the goal, and so her colleagues extended the gap easily to four goals.
With fluctuations in the Montenegrin game plan and thanks to three straight strikes of the motivated Oltchim players the scoreboard showed after 47 minutes a 23:22 lead for the hosts, so everything was started from scratch again.
With new tactics implemented by Adžić, Budućnost's passion returned and the hosts showed more efficiency in the attack extending the lead to four goals again.
In the dying minutes Oltchim could not compete with the power of the Montenegrin attacks, so Woltering and her colleagues celebrated a well-fought victory and progress with the maximum points to the semi-final of the EHF Champions League, where just like last season they will face Norwegian Larvik.
TEXT: Márk Hegedüs
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