The MINSK men's team went to the Russian capital for its last outing of the season in the VTB United League. Today, Aliaksei Sukhavetski's team lost in a tense duel with Runa in the end with a score 74:78 (19:19, 21:11, 16:19, 18:29).
Starting five:
MINSK: Vadzim Stubeda, Jovan Sljivancanin, Jacob Cebasek, Dmitry Kuratnik, Ivan Aladka.
Runa: Cameron Young, Andrey Sopin, Artyom Komissarov, Kirill Savin, Ilya Popov.
The course of the game
The rivals spent the opening quarter in an equal struggle, alternately taking the lead from each other. Artem Sekushenka showed himself vividly in the Minsk team today, who scored two hits from an average distance and added two more accurate “three-point" to them. At the first break, the teams left with a score of 19:19.
The second quarter was more successful for our players. Aliaksei Sukhavetski's wards made jerks of 6 and 8 points, which allowed them to leave the "+10” on the scoreboard for a long break (30:40). In the third ten minutes, Runa tried to rehabilitate itself for an unsuccessful second quarter and responded to MINSK with a number of aggressive attacks, reducing the gap in the score.
The denouement
The final 10 minutes of the game kept the intrigue of victory almost to the last. The teams compared the score on the scoreboard three times, but in the last minutes, Runa managed to get the victory in quick attacks and with repeated throws from the penalty line. The final score is 78:74.
The most productive:
MINSK: Grigory Motovilov – 16 + 3 REB + 8 AST, Uladzislau Mikulski – 13 + 4 REB + 3 AST+ 2 STL, Jovan Sljivancanin – 12 + 5 REB + 3 AST + 2 STL + 1 block.
Runa: Cameron Young – 21 + 2 REB + 5 AST + 1 STL + 1 block, Ilya Popov – 12 + 5 REB + 3 AST, Nikola Ivanovich – 12 + 3 REB + 3 AST+ 1 STL.
MINSK head coach Aliaksei Sukhavetski: “Today we showed a pretty good game, with the exception of a couple of segments where we got 10:0 and 7:0 in a few minutes. Unfortunately, the execution of free throws already in the game does not give us the opportunity to count on victory. We will fix this component. Good luck to Rune at the end of the season and in the future.“
Minsk residents will hold the last match of the season again on the road against the Moscow MBA. The game will take place on April 14 at 15:00, the broadcast will be available on the website of the VTB United League and Belarus 5 Internet.