Today Belarus national team played in Minsk the first game of the main qualifying stage of the 2023 World Cup in group B. The rival of Rostislav Vergun's players was the Turkish national team, who has a high 12th rating in the «Old World». Nevertheless, the Belarusian squad took the fight to a formidable rival.
Our guys were especially successful in the second and final periods, when they made effective jerks, and were running away from the guests by 14-17 points. In truth, the Turks reduced the score difference to a minimum several times, but the Belarusians were managed to cope with the opponent's pressure.
In the end, the rivals were almost on a par - 66:64. But the hosts, quite unexpectedly for the Turkish team, made a stunning acceleration of 15: 0! And despite all the enemy's attempts to avoid defeat, the Belarusian team confidently brought the game to a magnificent victory - 84:70. Great start to qualification!
Seven players from Tsmoki-Minsk took part in this game, although the contribution to the victory wasn’t the same. The most productive among the Dragons was Yauheni Beliankou, who scored 15 PTS + 6 REB + 4 AST. Uladzislau Blizniuk also acted superbly, he was playing on the position of main point guard: he scored 8 PTS + 6 AST + 3 STL + 1 REB. The statistics of the rest of the guys looks like this: Darol Hernandez-Zinenko - 2 + 4 AST + 1 REB + 1 STL, Aliaksei Trastsinetsk - 2 PTS, Vadzim Stubeda, Andrei Stabrouski and Benjamin-Pavel Dodoo had little playing time on the floor (2 - 4 minutes), so they did not have time to score effective points.
And the best scorers of the Belarusian national team this evening were Maxim Salash (26 + 4 REB + 4 AST + 1 BLK) and Artsyom Parakhouski (16 + 9 REB + 2 AST + 4 BLK). Both, we remind, recently were the players of Tsmoki-Minsk.
The Belarusian national team will play the next qualifying game on Sunday, November 28. In Thessaloniki, they will play against the favorite of our group, the Greek national team. The game starts at 18.00 Belarusian time. The live broadcast of the game can be viewed on the Belarus 2 TV channel.