This weekend Cambridge University Handball Club travelled to Kent to participate in the first round of the University Championships. It was an intense weekend which involved playing against all the other teams in our groups in matches lasting 30 minutes each. The Men’s Team won 4 out of their 5 matches (and drew in the fifth match) and the Women’s Team won 3 out of their 4 matches. Read on for a quick summary of each of the matches:
Saturday 24th November:
The first match of the weekend saw the women’s team play Kent. This match gave a preview of the excellent defensive play that was to follow from both teams over the course of the weekend, as only 4 goals were conceded. Some excellent passes to the line lead to Freyja being the highest scorer on the Cambridge side, scoring 3 out of 14 goals.
This was immediately followed by the men’s first match, which was against Bournemouth. Cambridge secured a comfortable win in this match, scoring 26 goals compared with Bournemouth’s 11. The men’s next match was against Kent. The final score was 18-6 to Cambridge and the highest scorer was Basti, who secured 7 of our 18 successful shots.
The women’s team then played Bath. This was anticipated to be a tough match as Bath was one of the strongest teams in the league last season and won their match against us in the group stages last year. Both teams demonstrated excellent defence in this exciting match. The scores were level for most of the match until Bath scored 2 more points towards the end of the game leading to a final score of 7-9 to Bath. The highest scorers in this match were Georgia, Eleonore and Christina, who each scored 2 goals.
After a short break, the Women’s team played against Chichester. The experienced players started the game and quickly secured a comfortable lead, allowing this year’s beginners to experience a real match. Throughout this match the defence from both the experienced players and beginners was excellent. The final score was 13-5, and Georgia scored 6 goals, earning herself the title of this match’s highest scorer.
The final match of the day saw the men’s team play against Portsmouth. This was a challenging game for Cambridge, who lead by two points for a large proportion of the game. With just a few minutes to go Portsmouth won a penalty against Cambridge and then they scored a second goal just before the match finished. This led to both teams finishing the game on ten points.
Sunday 25th November:
Sunday’s first match gave us a taster of the competition we would be facing in Varsity as the Men’s team played against Oxford. Cambridge’s excellent teamwork skills and communication led to us scoring 21 goals compared with Oxford’s 5 goals. The highest scorer was Basti again, who scored 6 goals.
Then the Women’s team played their only match of the day against Imperial. This match was anticipated to be challenging as we had no subs during this game. However, the excellent performance from the previous day continued and a win of 12-5 was secured. Georgia and Christina were joint top scorers, with each achieving 4 goals.
The Men’s team competed against Chichester’s second team in the final match of the weekend. The highest scorer of this match was Charles and he scored 7 of our 29 goals. Chichester scored 6 goals, and we finished the weekend on a high!
Statistics:
The Women’s team scored 46 goals and conceded 24, giving them a goal difference of +22. Goalkeeper Nini saved 35 out of 59 shots (59%).
The Men’s team scored 104 goals and conceded 38, leading to a goal difference of +66. Goalkeeper Jeremy saved 51 shots out of 90 (57%).
