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Plus 83 for Rilski Sportist, Balkan awaits them in the quarterfinals
Rilski Sportist had no problems in both games
The men's team of Rilski Sportist reached the Top 8 of Men Cup of Bulgaria after defeating Slavia with a smashing total points difference of 83. After the big win in Sofia by 103-51, today the players of Aleksandar Todorov won "only" by 31 points - 106-75 in Arena Samokov. So in the quarterfinals Rilski Sportist will meet the top team in the second best division - Balkan, who ousted Yambol.
Slavia stayed in the game until within one minute of half-time, when Rilski Sportist were leading only by 7 points - 44-37. A basket by Papic and a triple by Lilov made the result 49-37 at the break. After an 8-0 run to start the second half the score went to 57-37 but in the middle of the third quarter the visitors cut the deficit to 63-52. From then on a few good runs by the hosts allowed them to overcome their opponents with ease and get a huge win.
Todorov did not use the juniors of the team today as they are on a three day tournament from the Junior League in Varna. Thanks to that Mario Karailiev, who was born in 1993, made his debut for the team. He played 6 minutes and scored 4 points while also grabbing 2 rebounds.
After he was rested in the first game Travis Peterson was back today and in only 20 minutes of action he was the top scorer with 17 points.
Branko Mirkovic added 16 and 9 assists while Ivan Lilov had 15 points and 7 rebounds. Despite the loss the visitors played much better than in the first game in Sofia. Zlatko Zapryanov was the top scorer for them with 18 while Jordan Yankov and Lubomir Zhechev added 16 apiece.
Now Rilski Sportist will face a difficult task as the team will go to Pleven to meet Spartak on Friday. That game from Round 15 is the start of the second phase of the National Basketball League. In the first game in Pleven Rilski Sportist won but then Spartak took revenge in Samokov. So this coming Friday we should be expecting an interesting game.
