England to play for 5th place after great win
Return fixture against Catalonia in final playoff.by English Korfball Association
The listing was posted by English Korfball Association
The England U23 korfball team will face Catalonia for the second time in the tournament, this time for 5th place, after a 13-11 win against the Czech Republic.
The match will be played on Saturday at 12pm local time (4am GMT!) and England will be confident of beating the Spanish region for a second time after their earlier 14-13 pool victory, having seen off the country whose senior team won bronze at last year’s World Championships.
In their cross-semi-final, the two teams played cagily against each other with the Czech Republic taking the lead four times but England coming back on three occasions. The Czechs punished severely the lapses in passing and follow-through fouls by the English, scoring half their first half total from free passes or penalties. Half time 7-8.
England continued to play their patient game in the second half and, making far fewer errors than in the first period, took the lead 6 minutes into the half. Although the Czechs managed to equalise three times with a free pass, penalty and long shot, England were never again behind and eventually gained a deserved win.
Unlike the previous match, this time the top scorers in the team were girls, with Rebecca Woolmer scoring 5 goals and Natasha Dawson 4. The other scorers were Otto Fabius (2), Jocelyn Hoffman (1) and Joe Bedford (1).