It was a tough start for Nigeria at the IHF U18 Handball Championship which begins today in China, reports Sports247.
The Nigeria U18 girls we thoroughly dominated by Croatia as the European side cruises to a 31-11 win.
The Nigeria team who were making their debut at the event were 16:6 down at the break and they have no answer after the break to the Croatian onslaughts condemning Nigeria to a 31-11 loss in their first ever match in the competition.
With Lucija Renić led the Croats onslaught by putting nine goals past the goals past Nigeria in the group B encounter.
In group A encounter, Austria narrowly defeated Serbia 39-27 as Andrea Barnjak and Aurelie Egbaimo each scored six goals for the European side.
Sweden also took a bold step towards making the next round after delivering a 37:17 win over Chile.
The Swedes goalkeeper Anna Danielsson had 11 saves for a 58% saving efficiency with all but two of Sweden’s outfield players scoring at least one goal.
Nigeria next game comes up tomorrow against Angola before playing Montenegro U18 Girls to compete their group game .
32 teams are participating in the competition with 7 from Europe, 6 from Asia, 4 from Africa, 3 from the South and Central American Handball Confederation, 2 from the North America and Caribbean Confederation).
The team were in 8 groups of four teams each. The best two teams progress to the main round, where four groups of four teams are created.
The best two teams in each main round group make it to the knockout phase.
