Egis Körmend vs. BK Patrioti Levice
106:78 (31:24, 57:44, 86:60)
Referees: Török Róbert, Horváth Alajos, Földes Ádám (all HUN)
Audience: 1300.
Venue: Körmend Sports Hall, Körmend (HUN).
Scorers Egis Körmend: Price 23, Bradford 21, Hammonds 19, McNeail 18, Ferencz 8, Delas 7, Csorvási 6, Balogh 2, Lajsz 2.
Scorers BK Patrioti Levice: Gacesa 23, Ziak 16, Lawrence 14, Williams 9, Davis 6, Stefek 5, Krajcovic 4, Adamik 3, Bojanovsky 1.
Gallery & Statistics
The game started with a lay-up by Hammonds but soon afterwards Davis, who was a former player of Egis Körmend, answered with another lay-up. At the beginning of the game Levice tied several times, but mostly the hosts got the lead and scored the greater number of points. Both team showed a very strong play throughout the whole period.
The second quarter was opened with a 2 point jump shot by Gacesa, so Levice chipped away at the lead but Körmend were in the game all the way through in this period and did not let Levice to tie the game again. The home team showed a more concentrated play in this quarter and continued its strong play. They had the first 10 point lead during the game with a lay-up by Delas. Although Levice had great attempts from which they scored goals, the whole period was controlled by Körmend and they went into halftime with a thirteen-point lead.
After the halftime break Körmend continued its strong play. Levice tried to come back into game but they lost their control. The third quarter was opened with TJ Price’s 3 point shot which soon was followed with another shot from behind the arc by him. Not only Price but McNeail and Bradford did also showed their accuracy from distant shooting and made 3-point shots during this period carrying a 26 point lead at the end of tenth minute.
In the last quarter Körmend continued dominating the game. They had a chance to score 100 points and the game finished with a 106:78 victory of the hosts.
Antonis Constantinides, head coach of Körmend: “First of all I would like to wish all the best for Levice in this series and especially in the Slovakian championship. Our team is very well performing in the last one and a half month. Specially offensively. Day by day I start to like what we do offensively. We are very-very close to my expectations what we targeted in defense. Thats the reason why we have this results in the last 6 weeks. We have to continue like that. We will stop the chamiponship on the 24th of November. We have another 3 games at home. From now on everything depends on us. We try to prepare for every game better and better. Now our focus is on our championship where we have some dangerous game next Saturday and we can prepare against Graz next wk. Thanks for our funs who came today to support us.”
Kenyon McNeail, player of Körmend: “It was a good way for us to continue for qualifying into the sencond round of AAC. It was also an offensive night. A lot of guys get off and made good start with good shots and passed the ball around. Defensively it was good. We had to make sure we understand the full scout report coaches made for us, rotations and things like thad. It was a good night for everyone in the team.”
Teo Hojc, head coach of Levice: “Obviously I am not happy with the performance of my team. Like Nikola said we need to do it better. We did better in the season so we know we can do it better. Starting from our defense individual responsiblity was bad. Helps, rotations were not there and it was hard. It is a fact that we went against a good team from the Hungarian League and that league is higher level than our league. The players of Körmend have high quality. Still we need to do better. We need to re-group. We need to better next time. I want to congratulate to the home team and to the home coach to prepare the team to play basketball on this high level. We got a lesson and now we need to learn from this lesson. Next time we have to do better. We have a game on Saturday in our league where we can show that we got something and we can play good baskeball.”
Nikola Gacesa, player of Levice: “I wanna congratulate to Körmend. The better team won today. They were a team and we are not and we know that did not play good enough. We have to come together and stop this. It is simple. It is tough period for us. We had some problems with injuries and bodies. Those are not excuses for us. We need to come together as a team. We have to prepare.”
