Vive Tauron Kielce beat Motor Zaporozhye 28:27 and finished group phase with 10 victories.
For the Polish team this game couldn’t change anything, they already had the first place secured, while for Motor a victory was a chance to qualify for the Last 16. The circumstances were better than ever because Kielce were still very short-handed.
And in the first half hosts seemed to use it perfectly. Poles, in their experimental squad, had problems in both attack and defence. Motor took the lead and kept making the gap bigger and bigger. After 30 minutes they were better by 9 goals (19:10) and were pretty close to getting their 2 precious points.
In the second half Kielce took the better start and tried to reduce the gap. It took them 10 minutes to make 5 goals up (21:17) but they couldn’t get much more closer for the next 10 minutes. However, despite a few misses, good performance of Šego and unsuccessful attempts of Ukrainian team allowed Kielce to come from behind. Having missed opportunities to draw, Poles managed to equalized not before 60. minute (27:27). Zaporozhye had 30 seconds to score a winning goal but they didn’t even get to try because Mateusz Jachlewski stole the ball and made use of fastbreak scoring for 27:28.
STANDING:
| 1. KS Vive Tauron Kielce | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 312 | : | 271 | (41) | 20 |
| 2. MOL-Pick Szeged | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 253 | : | 241 | (12) | 12 |
| 3. HC Motor Zaporozhye | 10 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 283 | : | 284 | (-1) | 6 |
| 4. Dunkerque HB Grand Littora… | 9 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 228 | : | 238 | (-10) | 6 |
| 5. Aalborg Handball | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 233 | : | 246 | (-13) | 6 |
| 6. Kadetten Schaffhausen | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 239 | : | 268 | (-29) | 6 |
TEXT: MARTYNA USNARSKA
