The German league handball club Thüringer HC has qualified for the quarter-finals of the DHB Cup with great difficulty. The team of Head Coach Herbert Müller won 30:23 (12:13) on Sunday afternoon against HC Rödertal, a Saxon second-division club that fought with self-sacrifice. Nathalie Hendrikse was the THC's best scorer with seven goals. Santina Sabatnig also scored seven times for the hosts, who are coached by Maike Daniels.
The HCR, who finished second in the 2nd Bundesliga last season and has also made an excellent start to the current season with three wins, began furiously and initially took the Thuringians by surprise with a high tempo. The underdogs led 5:1 after three-and-a-half minutes, prompting Müller to call an early timeout. The visitors then stepped up their intensity in defense and played out their attacks with far greater concentration. With a 7:2 run, they turned a 1:5 deficit into an 8:7 lead (17th minute). However, the home side was not impressed by THC's spurt and fought its way back into the game, benefiting from an unusual number of technical mistakes by the Bundesliga club. At half-time, Rödertal could dream of a cup sensation.
The underdogs, with Julia Mauksch brilliantly directing them at the back, also put up a strong fight at the start of the second half. The game was completely evenly poised up to 18:18 in the 41st minute, before the Rödertal Bees visibly ran out of steam. They went more than ten minutes without scoring, which THC exploited to open up a 23:18 gap (51'). After that, the victory was no longer in danger, with the favorites instead extending their lead even further.
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