Team Nigeria recorded back-to-back defeats at the ongoing 10th IHF Women’s Youth U18 Handball Championship in China, www.aclsports.com reports.
Africa Vice Champion, Nigeria lost to Croatia in their first match by 11-31 goals on Wednesday, suffering her second defeat in the hands of Montenegro by 9 to 26 goals on Thursday
Reflecting on the matches, the head coach of Nigeria U18 Women’s team, Agboola Shittu hailed the players’ fighting spirit despite the results.
The ex-international revealed that attention will be shifted to their last match against Angola.
He said the shot ratio of the match against Montenegro was lower than the previous match against Croatia.
Shittu said, “I know these results aren’t what we expected while preparing for this competition but I must say that I am proud of the Girls for their resilience. We will now prepare for the next match and give it our all.
“In the first half, the team were able to score 6 goals against Montenegro while in the second half, we converted only three goals from our chances. I am worried by I know for sure the mistakes will be corrected in our final match”.
Meanwhile, captain of Nigeria side, Taiwo Babatunde acknowledged that inexperience cost them dearly but they are grateful for the opportunity to represent the country in a global championship; something that was impossible some years ago.
The Left Back player said, “We are not that experienced, but we have been quite good in the African championship last year and are trying to give our best every time.
“We are trying to learn as much as possible here, to become even better. Last year, we were in our continental competition, now we are at the World Championship and we are aiming to become even better,” Taiwo, whose twin sister is the team’s goalkeeper, told IHF Media after the match.
Nigeria will play Angola in their last group match of the competition on Saturday at 3am.
