Polish women’s handball players won in Spanish Granollers with Montenegro 33:28 in their last match of group I of the main round of the World Championship. The white-red team had already lost their chances to advance to the quarterfinals.
The first half was the best 30 minutes of the tournament for coach Arne Senstad’s team. After the break, the advantage of his charges grew even to 10 hits, but then they could not maintain proper concentration and Montenegrins made up for part of the loss.
In the beginning, both teams played chaotically. In fact, the game was played mistake for a mistake. Montenegro scored the first goal in the fourth minute – the Poles at the end of the sixth. After a quarter of an hour, there was a 6:6 tie and then the red-and-white team scored seven goals in a row, leading to 13:6 in the 25th minute.
Polish defence functioned flawlessly, and if a player from Montenegro managed to get through it, then a very well-disposed Adrianna Płaczek, who defended with 38% efficiency, stood in the way of the ball. The Polish goalkeeper was later recognized as the best player of the meeting.
At the beginning of the second half, the Polish advantage grew to eight hits. Aleksandra Rosiak, who scored seven goals, was showing off with her impressive shots. In the attack, she was bravely supported by Romana Roszak – 6 goals and Dagmara Nocuń – 4 goals. Five hits were scored by Magda Balsam, but three of them came from penalties, which the white-reds have significantly improved compared to the matches in the first phase of the tournament.
Immediately after the break, the Polish team continued to clearly prevail and in the 36th minute won 20:10. But from that moment on he lacked concentration, the number of unsuccessful plays in attack multiplied, the defence was not so tight, and the Norwegian coach let his substitutes play, including Monika Maliczkiewicz in goal. As a result, the rivals made up for the loss and reduced it to five goals after the finish in the end.