The penultimate day of the 2018 IHF Women’s Junior World Championship saw Netherlands defeat France at the Fonix Hall in the first match of the 5-8 Placement Round.
The Dutch will await the winners of Romania vs Denmark, to be played later today. The 5/6 place and 7/8 place matches take place tomorrow (Saturday 14 July).
All matches will be streamed live and free
HERE.
Placement Round 5-8 - Day One
Friday 13 July
Fonix Hall, Debrecen, Hungary
Netherlands vs France 29:23 (17:13)
Yara Ten Holte put in a player of the match performance in the Dutch goal as she provided a one-woman orange wall against ‘Les Bleus’ to set up a 5/6 Placement Match against either Denmark or Romania – and a chance for this generation of Netherlands players to go one better than the ‘golden generation’ who finished in sixth, back at the 2010 IHF Women’s Junior World Championship in Korea.
That team, coached by Monique Tijsterman, featured household names including Estavana Polman, Martine Smeets, Jessy Kramer, Danick Snelder and Debbie Bont, amongst others, and their sixth-place finish was the highest the Dutch have finished in the previous 12 editions.
However, today, 13 may be a lucky number for the Dutch as in their 13th appearance at this level, on Friday 13th, they will now equal that record no matter what their result tomorrow.
Against France, Ten Holte made 11/24 saves in a first half and a further eight in the second period to end with a 46% save rate. At the other end Bo Van Wetering struck seven times in the opening half and five times more in the second to end as top scorer with 12.
France had started the brighter of the two teams, managing to overcome their disappointment of missing out on a medal match as Melvine Deba easily intercepted a sleepy Netherlands pass, ran down the other end and switched to Deborah Lassource to fire home.
But the U19 European champions would be on the rocks before the end of the half as coach Eric Baradat took two time-outs in the space of four minutes (23rd and 27th) to re-adjust his team who were 16:12 down by then as Netherlands went on a 6:0 unanswered scoring run towards the end of the opening 30 minutes.
The second half started badly for Robert Nijdam’s Dutch side as two quick French goals brought them within two, but a defensive injury sustained by line player Maxime Drent soon after paused the game for a long period and threatened to put the Dutch off their stride as France drew level (17:17) in the 38th minute.
But Netherlands were not to be outdone and they swiftly went two ahead again in the 38th minute and did not fall behind again.
“It was really hard to come back from the Russian loss (in the quarter-finals),” said Ten Holte. “We said to each other after that, we want to win and fight for fifth place and you saw in this game that we fought for each other and fought until the end.”
Romania vs Denmark 20:29 (11:13)
A direct red card shown to Romanian line player Aura-Teodora Popescu with just 12:49 on the clock disrupted any chance Gheorghe Tadici’s side had of getting revenge against the Danes after their 42:23 capitulation in their Preliminary Group C match last Saturday (7 July).
After receiving treatment on court, Helena Hageso recovered enough from the early incident to top-score in the game for her Danish side with six strikes as they led for the whole 60 minutes, Romania coming close by one throughout the first half until the last five minutes as the Danes took a 13:11 half-time lead.
Just over two minutes after Hageso had been fouled, Ioana-Raluca Keleman came rushing out of her goal to stop a Danish fast-break but ended up taking out Sorina-Maria Tirca who left the court to recover – Tirca did eventually return to action but was reduced to scoring a solitary goal and then trying to mark Laura Jensen out of the game in an aggressive Romanian defence.
Denmark were coasting in the second half, five up with a quarter left (20:15) and then into a double-figure lead in the last 60 seconds (29:19).
Romania will now play in the 7/8 Placement Match against France – their lowest finish since 13th in 2012, but, considering they could have exited the tournament at the preliminary group stage, they will be happy with the progress since.
On the other side, Denmark now face Netherlands in the 5/6 Placement Match and will expect a tough contest not least as the Dutch go for their highest-ever finish in the competition and look for revenge after losing their Preliminary Group C title match 25:24 last Sunday.