SundayPolice 52-25 UR-CEAPR 58-20 UR-CASS

Champions Police began their national handball league title defence with a 52-25 win over University of Rwanda College of Education (UR-CE) in the first match of the 2017 season played on Sunday at the latter’s ground.

Norbert Duteteriwacu scored a game-high ten goals and Gilbert Mutuyimana added 9 goals to guide the three-times reigning champions to a comfortable win.

"I am really happy that we have won our first game; it is the best way to start a new season and hopefully we shall be able to carry this momentum into the next game and for the rest of the campaign,” said Police Handball Club coach Antoine Ntabanganyimana.

Meanwhile, his UR-CE counterpart, Joel Niyokwizerwa said that his team lost because they didn’t have enough time to prepare for this particular game.

"We only trained twice before today (Sunday), because most of our players were doing examinations and so we could not put together a full team for training, you could clearly see today that all the players are not fit to play,” he said.

UR-CE play their next match against Nyakabanda at the weekend and Niyokwizerwa believes a full week of training will make a big difference.

Elsewhere on day one, former champions APR beat Rwanda College of Arts and Social Sciences (UR-CASS) 58-20.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw