Cherno More lost in Kragujevac to Radnicki 034 Group

Kolev and McIntosh the best scorers for Varna

20-01-2009 22:48

Radnicki 034 Group won for third time in Eurohold Balkan League as they held to a 78-63 win over visiting Euroins Cherno More. With the win Serbian team took over at the table in Group A of this year competition but they have two more games than following Feni Industries and Swisslion Takovo. Radnicki 034 Group have only one game left, on February 18 versus Lions from Vrsac. On the other side Bulgarian team is still winless away from home but they have a chance to get to the next round as two of remaining three games they will play at home.

Two teams – Feni Industries and Swisslion Takovo are already through the next round of Eurohold Balkan League competition while for other two remaining spots for quarterfinals three teams will fight until the end.

The home team started much better and pushed the coach of Euroins Cherno More Daniel Dimitrov to take a time out only after 4 minutes of play. By that time Radnicki 034 Group led by 10-3. Plamen Aleksiev from the visitors cut the lead to 16-10 but Serbians finished the first quarter with 10-4 run and held double ddigit lead – 26-14 after 10 minutes of play.

The start of second quarter didn’t go very well for Bulgarian team. Home side went on 11-0 run as Rajko Kljajevic scored 7 of those points. Radnicki 034 Group led by 23 points (37-14) before american forward Michael Earl to score first second quarter points for his team with 4.30 minutes to go until the break. Uros Duvnjak had his second 3-point shot in the next offense for his team to bring the biggest lead of his team in the first half – 40-16. However Euroins Cherno More didn’t allow any more points in the remaining time of the first half, scored 10 of their own and at the half time break were only 14 points behind – 40-26.

There was a no big change of the situation on the court until the middle of the third quarter of play – 50-35 in favor of Radnicki 034 Group. However in the last 5 minutes of this part of the game Serbians went on 11-2 run and once again had 24 points advantage – 61-37 after 30 minutes of play.

With 3'44'' to go in the game Radnicki 034 were up 73-51 but the team from Varna decided to wake up. They scored 12 points in row but it was too late to manage come back and win this game on road. Succesfull free throw shooting in the last minute of the game for home team brought them a 15 points victory – final score 78-63.

The Bulgarian team had a terrible shooting percentage from downtown – 4 of 21 or only 19 %. The best scorer for them was Corey McIntosh with his 16 points, Nikolay Kolev added 15 and was a rebound shy of double double. Brazilian Atila Santos scored 12 points and grabbed 7 rebounds before to leave the court for 5 personal fouls.

For Radnicki 034 Group the trio of Rajko Kljajevic, Danilo Draskovic and Uros Duvnjak combined for 59 of 78 points for their team. Kljajevic managed the most – 27 points, 9 boards and 3 assists, Duvnjak ended with 17 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds while Draskovic captured 15 points and 8 boards.