OGC Nice finally secures its first away victory 26-19 on Dijon’s field. Thanks to this success, the women from Nice start the second part of the championship in the best possible way, moving up to 6th place.
A sigh of relief for Sébastien Gardillou and his team. After successive failures at Le Havre, Mios, and Nantes in “winnable” matches, the women from Nice win away against the bottom team, Dijon. A match controlled from start to finish, which will be useful in the coming weeks. A benchmark game!
55 seconds, that’s the short time Dijon led in this game. Apart from this first minute of the match, OGC Nice dominated on their own. They quickly created a slight gap with goals by Lacrabère, Escribano, and Filipovic (2-4, 9th minute). In the goal, Hélène Falcon was on fire, making 8 saves from 16 shots in the first half, achieving a nice 50% success rate. Dijon managed to catch up twice (6-6, 17th minute then 8-8, 23rd minute) but Nice finished strong with four goals by Escribano, Knutsdottir, Lacrabère, and Lecut. As a result, OGC Nice Handball led at halftime with a three-goal advantage, 12-9.
Sébastien Gardillou’s protégés start this second half at full throttle and extend their lead with impressive effectiveness in attack (11-16, 37th minute). No let-up, unlike in previous matches. The Filipovic-Lacrabère duo caused trouble for Dijon, who couldn’t keep pace (12-22, 49th minute). In the goal, Falcon remained as solid as ever, finishing with 16 saves from 33 opponent shots, a high-level performance. The game ended calmly with goals from Le Bihan and Samira Pereira Da Silva Rocha. The women from Nice won 26-19 with notable efficiency in attack and, more importantly, rediscovered their defense, just a week after conceding 35 goals in Nantes. Nice is now 6th in the standings, just 3 points behind Nîmes, in 4th place, but 2 points ahead of Le Havre, the bottom team.
Now it’s time for the traditional winter break, with the Championship resuming only on January 16 with a home match against Le Havre. In the meantime, there’s still a Coupe de la Ligue match (round of 16) next Friday at 8:30 PM, at Halle des Sports de Charles Ehrmann. A chance to end 2014 with confidence at an all-time high.
