Boston sweeps three wins at the 2nd Northeast League meet

The second meet of the Women’s Northeast Team Handball League brought us to Manhattan, this Saturday, where New York City Team Handball Club hosted Boston and Ocean NJ.

The competition kicked off with the host’s second team (NYC2) taking on Boston. After a slow start, the ladies from Boston took the lead and did not look back for the rest of the game. The first half of the game ended with a 9-6 lead for Boston Team Handball (BTH) with Blaki, the team’s goal keeper, saving two 7-meter shots during the half. Boston maintained their lead during the second half of the game rotating through their bench players and finishing the game with a 5-goal margin (17-12).

After a short break, Boston took on Ocean NJ (ONJ), the young team from the Garden State.

ONJ had just played NYC, but they still had the energy to put up a fight. They kept the game close but were unable to match the experience of Boston’s players Binta J. and Sarah W. hammered goals from 9-meters as Yoli R., the team’s right back fed passes to Katrine K. and Siff H. on the line. On the defensive side, a collective effort by the BTH ladies, backed by their goal keepers, kept the team ahead and earned them the second win of the day – Final score: 19-11.

The forth game of the day, and Boston’s third was the anticipated game of the day and promised a serious face-off between two cities whose rivalry extends across many sports – NYC vs Boston. In a nutshell, the highly defensive game met the expectations. The teams were tied for most of the first half with NYC taking a 1-goal lead before half-time break. Boston came back in the second half with the addition of their center player, Sarah W., who had taken a break for the entire first half. With 5 minutes left in the game, Boston had taken the lead by 2 goals and NYC was desperately trying to catch up; and they almost did. In the last 2 minutes, NYC scored after a miss by Boston, bringing BTH’s lead down to 1 goal. Boston took a time-out and regrouped, but a controversial call by the referee resulted in a loss of possession for Boston and put them back on defense with 40 seconds to go. Twenty seconds later, NYC earned a 7-meter shot. While everyone was thinking that the game was going to end in a tie, Dina K, Boston’s veteran goal keeper, had something left to say about that. The 7-meter shot hit the post of the goal and bounced back to the hands of the shooter who proceeded to take another attempt at scoring from the 6-meter line. As the ball flew towards the top left corner, Dina reached out and deflected the ball away, saving the day for the Boston team. The game ended with a valuable win for Boston 11-10.

The full results from the weekend are listed below. The next meet for the women’s division is in April, in Rockville, MD.

Boston Team Handball