Euroins Cherno More lost in Serbia

Bulgarian team Euroins Cherno More lost for the first time in Eurohold Balkan League tonight. In Vrsac in front of 850 spectators they were defeated by Swisslion Takovo 85-73.

The Bulgarians started the game well and were matching their opponents in the first minutes. They even took the lead at 0-4 but the hosts quickly tied the score. However Cherno More went ahead again and for most of the first quarter they stayed in front by a few points. So the first ten minutes ended 23-25 for the visitors.

The Serbian team managed to take the lead at the start of the second quarter, but the guests quickly reacted and tied the score again. The game continued like that with lead changes and tied scores until the hosts moved in front by six points shortly before the break. The players of Cherno More managed to score two straight baskets and made it 41-39 at half-time.

The third quarter turned out to be the one that settled the game. It started with a 12-3 run for the Serbians and for first time they took a double digit lead. The hosts managed to control the game in those minutes and at the end of the quarter their lead went up to 15, before McIntosh scored a triple to make it 65-53 after three.

The hosts killed the hopes of a comeback of the Cherno More players, after they started the last quarter with six straight points making it an 18-point game. The visitors tried to cut the deficit and they cut it down to 8 points after a triple, which unfortunately for them was answered immediately by Markovic and that actually killed off the game.

Top scorer for the hosts was Jorovic with 21, while Knezevic and Vlaskovic added 13 and 12 respectively.

For Euroins Cherno More Corey McIntosh had a second straight strong game, finishing with 30 points. The only other player to score in double digits for them was Atila Santos who had with 11.

In two weeks time Euroins Cherno More will host Cuadripol Brasov, looking to get a second straight home win in this group.

After the game, at the press conference, the player of Euroins Cherno More, Zeljko Bojovic, expressed his satisfaction with the performance of his team, in spite of the defeat: "We showed fine resistance to an excellent opponent. However, in the second half we made a large number of mistakes, and that was decisive for the match."

Nemanja Kovacevic, the Lions` player: "We started the 1st quarter insecurely, but as soon as we enhanced our defense in the 2nd and 3rd quarter, the things came to the right place. Once again, this game proved that we have to play in high rhythm all 40 minutes."

Daniel Dimitrov, the coach of the visiting team, congratulated the Lions with the well deserved victory and pointed out that the game was decided in the 3rd quarter.

"We should work on reducing the number of mistakes and situations in which we receive lots of easy points. We could not prepare well for this game, since we got a defective DVD."

The coach of the home team, Dejan Mijatovic, stressed that there had been some problems before the game, due to the injury of starting point guard Sasa Ocokoljic, but he was well replaced by Nemanja Kovacevic and Nenad Kasabasic, and that was a great gain for the team.

"We couldn`t stop the American, McIntosh, who scored 30 points this evening, but we managed to neutralize the other players of Bulgarian team. After the road win in Brasov, this victory becomes even more significant."