The first weekend of the US Northeast Team Handball League (NTHL) kicked off this past weekend and had all the elements of a good handball competition: close games, competitive attitudes and surprises in results. A total of 18 games were held over the course of two days in three divisions: Men’s D1, Men’s D2 and Women’s DW. All the DW and D1 games were played on Saturday, with some of the D2 games spilling over to Sunday.
On the women’s side, New York City Team Handball Club (NYC THC) grasped a valuable victory from Boston Team Handball (BTH) in the first match-up between the two rivals, this season. The game was close and Boston lead for most of it, but NYC came back to win the game at the end of the second half 14:13. Later Boston redeemed themselves in their match against West Point Black (WPB), one of the better teams in the league, in which they won also by 1 goal – another close game.
Division 2, on the men’s side, was equally as competitive and some games were as close as the women’s games. While the D2 teams tend to be a little lacking on experience, they certainly make up for that with their amazing enthusiasm, commitment and determination to win.
NTHL had taken a break from organizing a D2 league for a couple of years, but it has come back with a total of 6 teams competing this year, a few of which have a lot of potential for significant progress this season. Along with a big D1 roster, Boston fielded a D2 team with a bunch of players that are new to the game. On Saturday, the team played against NYC2 – a more experienced team that played at the US Elite Nationals last year. The Boston players gave NYC a hard time and kept them within a one-goal lead until later in the second half when a scoring error pushed the lead to 3 goals and left BTH frustrated leading to a widening of the gap to a final score of 9-14. On Sunday, BTH2 played against West Point Gold and conceded another loss to the physical superiority and fitness of the Army players.
The men’s D1 started with a major upset, when West Point Black (WPB) defeated New York City (NYC THC), the US National Champions, in the opening match by 2 goals. The game was close throughout with NYC staying on top for most of it, but a full-court pressure by WPB at the end of the game resulted in turnovers and a turn of events for NYC whose MVP, Sayed Shalaby, was not with team. NYC recovered in their next game and won against the DC Diplomats. Boston also had a shaky start in D1, struggling to beat DC in their first match and losing to NYC in the next, despite a fair good performance in the first half against NYC, which they finished leading by one goal. The fatigue of playing two consecutive games showed on the BTH players in the second half, though, and NYC ran fast breaks taking their lead up to 28-19 by the end of the game. The rest of the games had WPB defeating the Diplomats, and tying with Boston (14-14) in a rough game that witnessed the typical uncontrolled aggression of the physically-superior West Point players along with their disgraceful offensive trash talk on the court. At the end of the day, Army did finish at the top of the D1 standings with 5 points, followed by NYC and BTH with 4 points and 3 points, and DC with no points.
The full results of the weekend will be posted as soon as they are available.
Boston Team Handball