The last ticket for the Women’s 17 and Women’s 19 EHF EURO 2023 events goes to Serbia. Their U17 national team has won the so called ‘in-between competition’ in Belgrade this week with a dominating performance.
Serbia completed their perfect run in the four-nation round-robin tournament on Thursday evening with a commanding 31:20 victory over Iceland.
Serbia and Iceland had each won their previous two matches, against Slovenia and Slovakia, setting up a ‘final’ for the last day.
- Serbia were in command from the start, building a 5:0 lead and going 8:1 up in the opening 10 minutes on their way to a 15:7 half-time lead
- Iceland had three quick goals early in the second half, but Serbia regained control and stretched their lead to 10 goals when Tamara Mandic netted for 26:16 with nine minutes left
- Three late goals from Aleksandra Vasic helped Serbia to a decisive 31:20 win, with Natasa Cetkovic with seven goals the leading scorer; Inga Dis Johannsdottir and Lilja Agustsdottir each scored four for Iceland
- Slovenia finished third after beating Slovakia 26:23 (12:10), led by Lara Kolobaric’s eight goals
- Slovakia’s Dorota Bacenkova netted 10 times in her team’s last match and became the tournament top scorer with 23 goals; three ahead of Serbia’s Natasa Cetkovic
Serbia complete the 16-team field for the W17 and W19 EHF EURO 2023. They will join the 13 best-ranked nations from the W17 and W19 EHF EURO 2021 as well as Netherlands and North Macedonia, the two winners of the W17 EHF Championships held last summer.
