1. Semifinal in Ohrid

Romania – Montenegro 28:25 (12:13)

When the final whistle blew the Romanian player jumped for joy, bouncing around, knowing that they had just finished a really tough piece of work. After 60 extraordinary minutes of handball they won the first semi-final of this Women´s Youth (U18) World Championship against Montenegro with 28:25 and will play in  the final on Sunday to go for gold. The Montenegrin girls, who fighted hard, will play the bronze final. But first of all they have to dry their tears.

During the first minutes of this match Romania seemed to overrun the Macedonian girls. While they played very straight in attack, the Macedonian girls lacked concentration and missed some free chances. So Romania was able to build up a 5:1 lead after only seven minutes and the Montenegrin coach reacted with an early team time-out to wake up the team. With success: after a few vociferous words of headcoach Maria Savic it took the Montenegrins eleven minutes to score for draw (9:9 after 18 minutes) and another seven minutes to be in lead with 12:10 (25.). It seemed as if the favorite took over the control of the matchplay. But Romania was a competitor on eye-level and came back into this match. With a strong defense they consistently took their chances while Montenegro did only score once until the final whistle of the first half and was in lead with 13:12.

Coming back to court both teams were decisive, focused and full of passion. The match was tight and more than 400 spectators – about 100 of them from Montenegro – enjoyed a passionate match between two strong competitors. In this stage of the match it was a real thrilling and highclass encounter between Montenegro and Romania. Even after 55 minutes it was a 24:24 draw. But during the final stages of this match Romania took the better end, because Montenegro missed too many chances. And when Cristina Laslo scored a penalty for the 27:24 one minute before the end, it was clear that the favorite from Montenegro was beaten. Long before the 60 minutes were over the celebration of the Romanian bench had started.