SC DHfK Leipzig continues home strength with narrow win against HC Erlangen

The SC DHfK Leipzig handball team once again proved its strength at home in the German league. The team of Head Coach Runar Sigtryggsson defeated HC Erlangen 20:19 (11:11) on Sunday afternoon to celebrate its fourth successive win in front of a home crowd. In front of 4025 spectators, Viggo Kristjansson was SC DHfK's best scorer with eight goals as it moved up to seventh in the table with 15:15 points.

"It's always a tough battle against Erlangen," said Kristjansson before the game. What the Icelander meant by that quickly became clear in this encounter, too. The defensive lines and two strong goalkeepers dominated right from the start. Erlangen got off to the better start, but had to cope with a red card for left wing Christopher Bissel in the tenth minute. The club from Leipzig scored three goals in succession to take a 5:4 lead (13th minute) before also losing a key player to a red card. Franz Semper was sent off early in his 200th Bundesliga match after a headbutt (15th minute). Both teams continued to lack ideas in attack, and there were also many lapses in concentration. The home side had its goalkeeper Domenico Ebner to thank in particular for keeping the scores level at half-time, as he shone with nine saves in the first half.

The Italian international also shone after the restart, enabling SC DHfK to open up a slight gap for the first time (15:12 in the 37th minute). Erlangen initially clawed its way back to 14:15 (43'), but was unable to score against Leipzig's strong defense for the next ten minutes. The home side extended its lead to 19:15 in this spell. The HCE did not give in and reduced the deficit to 18:19 by the 57th minute. After a timeout by Sigtryggsson, Kristjansson scored to make it 20:18, but the visitors immediately found the right response and even had the chance to tie the scores at 20:20 with their final attack. However, Christoph Steinert, who was decisively thwarted by Leipzig's Marko Mamic, missed the last shot with 13 seconds remaining.