The group phase of the women’s hand ball tournament has ended: soon we will know who is the best team at the European Universities Games Zagreb – Rijeka 2016. Two exciting games were played in Rijeka, and Croatian fans will surely be pleased with the fact that two Croatian teams have an opportunity to reach the big final.
In the most efficient match of the quarter final, the University of Ljubljana defeated the University of Niš. Niš played great in the group phase, but completely underperformed today. At the end of the first half, Ljubljana developed a seven goal lead, and Niš only managed to soften the defeat by the end as the game ended 35:31.
Veronika Leški was in the mood and scored 13 goals for Ljubljana, while Tina Kolundžić with eight and Maja Veljković with seven goals were the best in the defeated team.
Ljubljana will be playing against the home team from Rijeka, who won against the University of Porto with 25:22. They played a firm match; the home team managed to put some distance in the first half, leading 13:9. They kept their lead against the Portuguese and brought the match to an end.
Stefani Stakorić scored 7 goals, while her teammate Ella Bukvić managed to score one goal less. Patricia Resende was the most efficient Porto player with 6 goals, while Ana Filipa Gante scored 5.
The University of Zagreb will play against the University from Lithuania in the other semi-final tomorrow. The team from the capital of Croatia were convincing today, scoring as twice as many goals as their opponents from Portorož. We can argue that the match was suspenseful in the first half, as the result was 14:9, but Zagreb picked up their game in the second, winning 32:16.
Anamarija Galić scored eight goals, while Mateja Orlović scored six goals for her team. In the defeated team from Portorož, Lea Krajnc was the best among her teammates, scoring seven goals, which is almost half of all Portorož goals.
Tomorrow, the girls from Lithuania will surely give the home team a run for their money. They showed against the University of Pitesti that they have good players and they could pose a serious challenge to the team from Zagreb. The score was 16:12 in favour of the Lithuanians at half time, and they even managed to increase their lead later on as the game finished 31:24.
Inesa Verbovik had a great game again, scoring 11 for her team, while the students from Romania, Dana Abed and Anamaria Udrea, were again the best in the Pitesti team: Dana scored 6 and Anamaria scored 5.
Results
