Game
day 11 at the European Championships here in Eindhoven, The Netherlands
started with a 11-10 win for Spain against The Netherlands.
A little
history was wrote because the sixth place for the Dutch squad is their
worst result at the Europeans since three fifth place finishes in 2001
(Budapest, Hungary), 2006 (Belgrade, Serbia) and 2008 (Malaga, Spain)
respectively. After a quick start by Spain (3-1) the Dutch took over and
ran out to a 9-5 lead halfway through the third quarter. Miguel Oca's
squad answered back with a 4-0 run to level the score before the start
of the fourth quarter already. The game was more or less decided by a
time-out call by The Netherlands' head coach Mauro Maugeri as Nienke
Vermeer quickly scored after causing a Spanish exclusion. The 11-10
goal Vermeer scored was disallowed, the following man-up missed by
active Spain defence and a Laura Lopez goal with 1.55 to play decided
the encounter.
Greece won the first semi-final of the day against
Hungary 14-12. The active Hungarian defence did well on numerous
occasions but collapsed in the final quarter as Greece tightened up
their defence as well and secured the win in this well shooting match.
Watch the final at 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 28 (Greece time) - ET1
