Important win on home-court debut in EuroLeague

Sopron Basket - Olympiacos WBC 85-69 (29-25, 21-14, 17-14, 17-16)
Sopron

Sopron Basket: Fegyverneky 5/3, Turner 19, Crvendakic 11/3, Zahui 4, Dupree 14 Sub.: Salvadores 12/3, Dubei 11/6, Határ 9

Olyampiacos WBC: Pavlopoulou 9/3, Thomas 13/6, Mazic 6, Johnson 14, Sotiriou 8 Sub.: Spyridopoulou 10/3, Nikolopoulou 5/3, Stamati 4, Aftzi -, Kosma -

Stats

FGS: 34/63 54% ill. 24/53 45%

3-PTS: 6/16 38% ill. 6/22 27%

FTS: 11/15 72% ill. 15/21 71%

Rebounds: 28 (Dupree, Határ 8-8) ill. 32 (Johnson 9)

Assists: 22 (Turner, Dupree 4-4) ill. 13 (Nikolopoulou 3)

Steals: 9 (Salvadores 3) ill. 4

Turnovers: 9 ill. 16

Faults: 20 ill. 17

VAL: 104 (Dupree 21) ill. 70 (Johnson 14)

The game began with a big shoot-out, in which neither side was able to claim the early lead (3rd minute 9-9). After that the Greek have performed a 6-2 run to pull away from us. Then came Zsófi and hit a huge triple right before the buzzer went off to reduce the gap and force the away side to call their first time-out of the game (5th minute 14-15). The first quarter showed many lead changes, but mostly Olympiacos was in the lead (8th minute 19-23). In the last two minutes we were able to continue execution on offense and finally stop our opponents on defense which resulted in an 8-2 run to close the first period (10th minute 29-25).


Yvonne continued in the second where she left off in the first, her basket opened the period to which Olympiacos answered back with a three. Later on they have added another one to reduce the gap to a single point, and when they took over the lead after a double, head coach Roberto Iniguez had to call his team to the bench to talk it over (15th minute 31-32). Then came Yvonne with a double to regain the advantage for us, and launching a 6-0 run that forced Pantelakis to call another time-out (37-32). Their efforts have proved ineffective, after the short break we have kept our run going until 13-0 in total before the Greek were able to score from the line (44-34). Our lead just kept growing until half-time, even though the last basket of the period was a triple by the away side (20th minute 51-39).


The second half began with two successful free throws made by Sotiriou, to which Johnson added two more off a lay-up, before Aleks made our first basket of the half from under the rim, and off the assist by Candice Yvonne restored the difference registered at half-time (24th minute 57-45). The audience had to wait two minutes for the next field goal that came from the corner by Aleks and was worth three points (26th minute 60-46). In the remainder of the quarter the difference between the two sides hasn't changed significantly, which meant we were in a comfortable double-digit lead going into the final stage of the game (30th minute 68-53).


The fourth quarter began with a triple from Stamati, to which Pavlopoulou added two more before Debi silenced them with a corner three and forced a time-out (32nd minute 71-59). After some exchanges of baskets came a long scoring drought, to which Betti was able to put an end with a double following a nice spin move under the rim, and when Yvonne added two more off a lay-up, Pantelakis had to call another time-out (36th minute 78-60). After the pause Debi hit one from the corner to increase our lead over 20 points, but when Thomas buried a three on the other side it was Roberto Iniguez's turn to call his team to the bench (38th minute 81-65). In the final minutes the difference has not changed by much, which meant that we claimed our first win in this Euroleague season (40th minute 85-69).

Roberto Iniguez: Olympiacos showed it today that they never give up. They have character, and lots of success is still ahead of them. For us the most important thing today was the win. Our group is well-balanced, and teams have to work very hard for each victory. Aside from Kursk every team is on the same level here, so all wins will have huge meaning.

George Pantelakis: Congratulations to Sopron for the win. It was an excellent game. In the first half we were unable to deliver on defense. After the break we were trying to improve in this area, but you could see that this was only our second game in Euroleague. We will keep trying to improve game by game.

Yvonne Turner: We have won a great game against a Greek side that kept fighting till the end. We stepped up with enough aggressivity, but there is still room to grow.

Lykendra Johnson: We played against players of great talent today, and you could tell that we are still inexperienced on this level. There were some aspect in which we had disadvantages, especially height. We have to go back to square one.