PAOK – OFNI 21-20: Biceps winners in a nerve-racking final

The big winner of the 18th Final Four of the Women’s Cup, held in Chalkida, was PAOK, who defeated Nea Ionia in a very nice final 21-20 and won the 6th cup in their history.

Maria Hatziparasidou (9 goals) and Emanuella Tsiknaki (13/33 interventions) were the front-runners for the North’s “biceps”, while Nea Ionia’s Kepesidou delivered a great game with 18/38 saves.

The match: Nea Ionia started the match better and led 2:1 (6:20), 5:3 (14:12), 7:5 (18:22) and 8:6 (20:52). The Kepesidou sisters lead the way. Magda had key interventions (9/14) with an exceptional percentage (65%) and Nikolina aggressively gave the solutions with 3 goals up to that point.

PAOK responded with very good tsiknaki and the first-class Hatziparasidou, who scored and provided shared assists, managed to turn the game around and went from 6-8 to 12-8 (31st) with a 6-0 series.
Sasa Zivulovic’s team calmly coped with the situation against them and managed to finish the game with two goals from Mania, Konstantinidou and a surprise from Stougiannidou with a series of 4: 0 from 13 with 38:50 (13: 13) – 9 ( 33:10).

The North’s “biceps” restored the difference to +4 (17-13) at 46:30 with Hatziparasidou, Mentesidou, Burato and Grbavcevic. With a new 4-0 series this time from Nea Ionia starring Konstantinidou, we had another draw in 51′ (17-17).

Nea Ionia missed the opportunity with Mania’s penalty to pass at 53:53 with the score of 18-18 with Tsiknaki performing a major operation. Grbavcevic and Mania scored (19-19) and a little later Hadjiparasidou won a penalty, a two-minute break from Davidovic and made 20-19 at 56:04, while Vrancic scored two goals (21-19) against PAOK with 57.’

Both teams lost by two attacks and Stougiannidou scored the last goal (21-20) at 59:50 which was the final score.