MOL Women's Hungarian Water Polo League: Festival of Favorites

The closest battle was between III. Kerület and Eger, who spent the past week together and were also drawn against each other in the Euro Cup after the Champions League qualifiers. On Sunday, Eger won 13-10, and now in Budapest they also scored 13 goals, but the III. Kerület team ran out of steam in the second half, stopping at 7 goals. In the first half, they shined; they led 4-1 with an action goal by Enikő Rajna with 41 seconds left before halftime, but Ilona Borsi scored a beautiful goal for III. Kerület at 0:09 to narrow the gap.

However, things changed in the third quarter as Eger stepped up their game, scoring three goals within two minutes, and later adding two more, running a series of 0-5. The home team managed to score after more than six minutes, but Borsi and Natasa Lendvai scored two more goals in 36 seconds, and the 7-1 quarter settled the match; the final quarter was dominated by the players from Eger, relying on the effective play of their two national team players, Dorottya Szilágyi and Rebecca Parkes, they eventually overwhelmed their young rivals.

The other matches saw significant differences. The defending champions UVSE easily defeated newcomers KSI - the ratio of shots hitting the goal tells a lot: 26-11 - while Dunaújváros achieved the largest margin victory against the once glorious Szentes at home. Kriszta Garda led with 7 goals, making her the highest individual scorer of the opening day.

Despite mainly featuring their young players, FTC-Telekom, who performed well in the Champions League qualifiers, did not give Tatabánya a chance, and BVSC-Manna ABC, also qualifying for the main round, reached 20 goals against Szeged.

MOL Women's Hungarian Water Polo League, 1st Round

UVSE-Hélia D–KSI 20-6

III. Kerületi TVE–DiGi-Eger 7-13

Valdor-Szentes–Dunaújváros 4-21

FTC-Telekom–Tatabánya WWP 17-7

BVSC-Manna ABC–Szeged 20-7

(clicking on the matches opens the statistics)