HANDBALL – Bahrain barged into the main round of the inaugural Asian Men’s U-17 Handball Championship yesterday in Amman, Jordan.
The kingdom’s cadet men’s handball national team eked out a last-gasp 31-30 victory over Gulf rivals Kuwait to make it through to the elite eight as winners of Group A in the tournament’s preliminary phase.
With the score tied at 30-all and under half-a-minute remaining in the second half, Ahmed Abdulla fired in the game-winning goal from the seven-metre line with just 15s on the game clock, helping lift the Bahrainis to the hard-earned result.
The Kuwaitis were unable to find an equaliser the rest of the way and the nationals posted their second triumph in as many outings while handing the Kuwaitis their first loss.
Despite their defeat, Kuwait are also through to the main round, where Bahrain will next play in Group One and Kuwait will compete in Group Two.
Those matches are scheduled to get underway tomorrow.
The Asian Handball Federation (AHF) competition features 13 cadets national teams from across the continent.
It also acts as the Asian qualifier for the IHF Men’s U-17 Handball World Championship, to be held in Morocco from October 24 to November 1. The top two teams from this event will book their tickets to the worlds.
Following this ongoing single round-robin, the top two teams from each of the four divisions in the preliminaries move on to the main stage, where they will be divided into another two groups of four.
Another round-robin will be played to determine the semi-finalists, which will be held on Tuesday next week. The gold and bronze medal games are then set for Thursday, the championship’s concluding day.
The sides that do not make it into the main round will compete in a lower-tier competition for the Martyr Fahad al Ahmad Al Sabah Cup, which will determine ninth through 13th, respectively.
In Bahrain’s win yesterday, they built a 10-5 advantage early on but Kuwait gradually closed the gap to 13-15 at the break.
After the re-start, the nationals continued to stay ahead until their opponents broke an 18-all deadlock with a resounding 5-2 rally that put them in front 23-20.
But Bahrain replied and a Mahmood Ali Ahmed conversion with just over 10 minutes remaining tied it at 24-all. The two teams continued to trade goals until Wadee Hasan Ali gave the Bahrainis back the lead at 27-26.
Three straight goals from Bahrain’s Sayed Almahafda helped them take a 30-29 edge into the closing minute, where Kuwait’s Hussain Alostad scored with just under 40 seconds remaining to level the proceedings at 30-apiece.
That set the stage for Abdulla’s end-game heroics.
Ahmed and Hasan finished as Bahrain’s leading scorers with six goals each, while Abdulla chipped in with five and Sayed Ali Ebrahim had four.
Almahafda scored three goals while Ali Adel Hasan and Hasan Ali Saif contributed two apiece.
Nayef Alajmi was the game’s top performer with 10 goals for Kuwait, while Alostad added six goals in the loss.
Today is a rest day in the tournament, with action resuming in the ensuing phases tomorrow.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))