After a close thriller, decided only by the final whistle, Czech Republic have secured the eleventh position at the Women’s Junior (U20) World Championship in Croatia on Saturday (12 July). The Czechs beat Serbia after a strong final catch-up chase. 12 goals of Veronika Mala and a final save of strong goalkeeper Petra Kudlackova were the additional keys to this victory.

Placement match 11/12: Czech Republic - Serbia 33:32 (15:17)

Despite playing their eighth match in this competition both sides did not have had big bones, but fought hard to end the tournament victorious. With power in attack and defence, Serbia initially had been the better team. Stopping the tall Czech back court players they managed to cause turnovers which concluded in counter attack goals. The consequence was an intermediate 12:7 lead in a vivacious encounter. But the Czechs found their rhythm, improved their defence and caused less mistakes in attack to be down by only two goals at the break.

And the second half started as the first one had ended: Until minute 42 the Serbs kept their close lead, before finally the Czech team managed to equalize for the first time at 24:24, causing a Serbian time-out. From this period until the end the Czechs also had advantages in goalkeeping thanks to Petra Kudlackova.

With eleven minutes on the clock the Czech players and spectators jumped for joy, when Kamila Kordovska scored for the first lead at 28:27. And within only 30 seconds the Czech had turned the match around completely, heading to 32:29 after a double strike in minute 55. But still the Serbs were not beaten definitely: With the dying minute to start the score was 33:32 - both coaches took their final time-outs. Serbia replaced their goalkeeper by a seventh field player for their last attack - but they failed with their final shot against Kudlackova.

So even ten goals of Serbian top scorer Sanja Radosavljevic were not enough to at least make it to a penalty shoot-out.