Yannick Buchholz from ITM was a successful athlete at the university handball tournament, congratulations! He writes:
“The Whitsun handball tournament in Magdeburg has a long tradition and has been held there in this format for a number of years. 16 teams from all over Germany took part again this year. As last year’s winners, our team from Münster went to the start with a tailwind.
In the group stage (Saturday), we beat Tübingen, Düsseldorf and Magdeburg with ease. The first play-off game took place on the same day, against Stuttgart. We found it surprisingly difficult against this opponent and were only leading by one goal until shortly before the end. Three seconds before the end, a seven-meter penalty was whistled against us. It should be mentioned at this point that we play mixed handball – i.e. men and women together – and that goals scored by women count double. This put us in the unpleasant position that a seven-meter penalty converted by a woman would have meant defeat for us and thus the impossibility of defending our title. Only a brilliant save by our strong goalkeeper secured our place in the semi-finals.
On Sunday, they continued against Dresden. The Saxon team was a strong opponent, but we managed to beat them 9:12 in the end.
In the final, we had a reunion with the Magdeburg team, which finished second in our group and thus still made it into the play-off. But even in the final, the hosts were unable to exploit their home advantage – we ultimately won clearly with 9:16 goals and were able to defend our title.”
