Nigeria’s Under-18 Women’s Handball team on Saturday defeated their Algerian opponent 28-18 in the first game in Monastir, Tunisia, at the ongoing Africa Women’s Youth Handball Championship.

Team Nigeria gave a good account of themselves in the first match.

The result of the first half was not good for the Nigerian girls against the Algerians as they played out a pulsating 10-10.

Nigeria blew away their North African opponent to win the second half, scoring 18-8 to make the final result 28-10.

Shittu Agboola, the Nigerian team’s coach, described the game as “a good beginning”.

“I noticed that the girls were having unnecessary turnovers, so I made some tactical changes that saw the team use the wings more in the second half.

“The girls all played to instructions which gave us a good result. We are here to win all our games; we came for a serious business,” he said.

Taiwo Babatunde of Nigeria was voted the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the match.

Team Nigeria is in group A with Tunisia, Algeria and Guinea, and is set to play their next match against Guinea on Sunday at 4:00 p.m.

The 19th Africa Women’s Youth Handball Championship, which started on Saturday, is expected to end on September 23.

(NAN)