Inter Bratislava – BC GGMT Vienna 84:86 (25:19, 20:15, 18:28, 21:24)
Referees: Scholze, Záruba, Karafiát (all CZE)
Attendance: 150
Venue: ŠH SOŠ (Pezinok, SVK)
Scorers – Inter: Blondin and Slavinskas both 26, Gandia-Rosa 12, T. Malovec 9, M. Malovec 7, Boros 4, D. Koller and Randuška 0
Scorers – Vienna: Vujosevic 22, Jones 19, Siriščević 16, Jogela 10, Rados 7, Vrabac 6, Hughes 4, Detrick 2, Zadeh 0
Inter played with eight healthy players, with three youngsters on the bench (aged 17, 17 and 18). But played aggressive and took command over during the first period. Just like against Děčín, Inter once again played high-tempo offense, fans in Pezinok were astonished by the glimpses of the geniality of young prospect Timotej Malovec. Although Austrian team fought back, Inter won the first period 25:19. During second quarter home team made some hard shots and clever plays, so it was +11 late in the second period.
Inter was +16 after the half-time (the score was 52:36). Since it was 57:43, Vienna responded with 10 points in a row. And again, at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter, the away team had an impressive 16-point scoring run from 55:63 up to 71:63. Inter was fatigued, but not broken. So the crowd witnessed a real drama at the end with a happy ending for Vienna, which won the game 86:84.
Post-game quotes:
Oleg Meleshchenko, coach of Inter: ”We were dead and fatigued so we made a lot of mistakes. We were punished. But I’m proud of my team, playing in this rotation with all these young guys… The game gave us more than we´ve expected.“
Trevor Blondin, player of Inter: “It was back and forth. Both teams had great energy whole game. Obviously we were short of a few men, but we just came out with the effort. We were down by eight or seven, but we fought back, we´ve never given up. We’ll see these guys again, so I am looking forward to it.“
Aramis Naglič, coach of Vienna: “We played a very good game against Kapfenberg in Austrian Cup a few days earlier. Today the team was just a bit relaxed. Inter missed Zubac, but the first half showed us how dangerous this kind of game could be. We played a catastrophic defense and one-on-one defense didn’t exist at all. We couldn’t search for an alibi for playing zone defense or whatever else. After all, we lost a huge amount of energy to win the game. So we’re satisfied with the win, but Inter with these young guys, played a great game. So congratulations also to Inter. “
Andre Jones, player of Vienna: „I want to tip my hat off to Inter. They played amazing and fearless. We’ve been surprised, how much energy they have. They weren’t scared at all.“
Photo: Vladimír Dorňák
