The Lithuanian women’s handball players did not oppose the Spanish women in Vilnius

Whether Lithuanian women’s handball players will be able to win a ticket to the European Championship will be decided in the last round of the selection tournament on April 7 in North Macedonia.

At the beginning of the match, the Lithuanian and Spanish teams exchanged goals and the result was equal 3:3. Later, the initiative was taken over by the Spanish women, who won the first half 17:9. After the break, the home team, supported by the spectators, managed to get closer to the rivals 16:22. However, at the end of the match, the Spanish women managed to stop the Lithuanian attacks and the rivals won a convincing victory 34:20.

Rita Rakauskienė was the most productive player for the Lithuanian national team, scoring 8 goals. Vakarė Damulevičiūtė scored 5 goals, Aušra Arciševskaja – 4, Dominyka Andronik – 2, Greta Makovskytė – 1. The main goalkeeper of the Lithuanian national team Evita Žilionytė saved 10 shots out of 35.

“The Spanish national team is an elite team in the world and with all five victories, they became the winners of our qualifying group without much competition. Nevertheless, we challenged the favorites at home. We played really well in defense, the goalkeepers also made some saves. The main reason for the defeat was missed shots. We were as close as six goals to our opponents, but after a minute’s break, we fell apart and the opponents were irretrievably behind. That spurt led to the defeat”, commented the coach of the Lithuanian national team, Karolis Kaladinskas.

“It is very nice that we managed to play a good match, because for me this is probably the last European Championship qualifying tournament in the Lithuanian national team. We were all very excited and we really wanted to play better than in the first match against each other in Spain. We succeeded in this to some extent, although at the end of the match we allowed our opponents to break away too much”, said Rita Rakauskienė, a veteran of the Lithuanian national team, who was chosen as the best player of the match.

Having won one victory in 5 matches, the Lithuanian women’s handball players remained in the third place of the 5th group with 2 points and keep their chances of winning a ticket to the European Championship. Everything will be decided by the last match on April 7. away with the national team of North Macedonia. Macedonians have already secured second place in the group and a ticket to the European Championship after today’s 37:22 away victory against the outsiders of the group, Azerbaijan.

The top two national teams in the groups and four of the eight best third-placed teams will enter the European Championship. When determining the best third-placed teams, only their results against the first two national teams will be counted.

“We are going to fight for points, for every goal, because the ratio of goals can determine who gets tickets to the European Championship. According to the current tournament situation, a draw with Macedonia would probably guarantee us a place in the European Championship. Meanwhile, this match won’t decide anything for the rivals. Perhaps they will let their leaders rest, as was the case in the Macedonian game in Azerbaijan in the second half. Everything is in our hands, so I believe that the girls will show character and their best game and give their heart in the fight for a place in the European Championship”, said K. Kaladinskas.

In the first match against each other in Vilnius, the Lithuanian handball players lost to the Macedonians after a tough fight 28:31.

In its entire history, the Lithuanian women’s handball team played in the European Championship only once. in 1996 Lithuanian women’s handball players took 12th place in the Old Continent championships held in Denmark.