Runar Sandefjord continue their impressive European Cup campaign. The Norwegian side lost the first leg in Greece by six goals against last season’s finalists Olympiacos SFP. However, their defence was nearly unbeatable in the return leg at home. Runar controlled the game from the start, went in front by seven goals in the 38th minute, and never looked back. They even managed to increase their lead to ten goals to win 33:23 at home.
- Mats Bjørnstad had himself a day, saving 20 shots (46 per cent) for Runar, while Christoffer Rambo and Robin Gerhardsen Wulvik contributed seven goals each to the dominant victory
- HC Izvidac were the second team to complete a comeback at home, beating Icelandic side Haukar by 33:26 in Bosnia and Herzegovina after losing the first leg by three goals last week
- Izvidac could once again rely on their goal machine Diano Neris Cesko, who improved his goal tally to 70 with his nine goals on Saturday; another key factor were goalkeeper Haris Suljevic with 18 saves (45 per cent) and Milan Vukšic with nine goals
- HC Alkaloid and CS Minaur Baia Mare delivered an intense first leg last week that ended in a draw; this weekend, HC Alkaloid had a dream start to the match, leading 4:0 after six minutes and 18:12 at half-time; the visitors from Romania could not close the gap again and had to accept the home side’s 32:25 win
- the EHF has decided to postpone the return leg between RK Partizan AdmiralBet and AEK Athens HC, scheduled for Sunday, 30 March, 18:00 CEST, due to security issues in the playing arena; additional announcements will only be made following a further investigation of the incident
Alkaloid break the trend of the weekend
It’s no news that a great goalkeeping performance can be vital in such close matchups in the knockout rounds. Runar Sandefjord’s Mats Bjørnstad (20 saves) and HC Izvidad’s Haris Suljevic (18 saves) confirmed this once again over the weekend, outperforming their counterparts by eleven and seven saves, respectively.
The only team seemingly not going with the trend were HC Alkaloid. They comfortably beat CS Minaur Baia Mare by seven goals in the return leg, with goalkeeper Ivan Galevski drawing the goalkeeper battle at nine saves between him and the Romanian side’s three goalkeepers.
