Rilski Sportist took a double digit advantage over Kumanovo

BC Rilski Sportist managed to take a double digit advantage in the quarterfinal of EUROHOLD Balkan Leaguea against KK Kumanovo 2009. The teams met in Samokov for their firts game and the home side won the match 97-85 after leading by more than 10 points for most of the way. So with this result Rilski will take a 12-point lead for the return game which will take place in Kumanovo on March 24th. This resuls also stopped Kumanovo′s run of five straight wins in the competition. The winner from this tie will meet KB Peja in the semifinal.

Rilski went off to a fast start and in littile bit over a minute took an 8-2 lead. Kumanovo managed to quickly come back in the game and both teams continued to exchanged points as the defense wasn′t at its best in those minutes. The home side managed to make an 11-0 run which put them up by 9 points as after ten minutes they led by 6 as both teams had scored a total of 66 points. Shortly after the start of the secondq quarter the visitors cut the deficit to two but then Rilski went on another run and the advantage increased. The hosts had an 15-2 outburst and suddenly their lead went to 15 points. Until the break Kumanovo tried to close the gap but Rilski played well and allowed it to go down by only 2.

In the third quarter the hosts did very well job of protecting their lead. Twice it went up to 17 points and at the same time the visitors didn′t manage to cut it to less than 13.

Kumanovo scored the first three points of the last quarter and after that the visitors had a good chance to cut the deficit to single digits. However they missed it and Rilski managed to punish them once again. The advantage went to 16 but with two minutes to go Kumanovo closed the gap to 9. Then with 65 seconds to go Vernon Taylor made a very important basket and free throw for the home side but right after Kumanovo gave back one point. After that both teams missed and them Rilski did it again. For the final 6 seconds the ball went to the visitors but they made a mistake with the inbounds play and Zlatin Georgiev took advantage of that to fix the final score.

Great game in his return for the hosts had Vernon Taylor who finished with 32 points for the win. Yordan Bozov added 17 points and 5 assists while Zlatin Georgiev had 16 points and 8 rebounds.

For the visitors Aleksandar Kostoski finished with 33 points and 6 assists as he made six three-pointers. Vukasin Mandic added 18 points and 6 rebounds as Uros Lukovic had 12 and 8.

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FULL STATS FROM THE GAME BC RILSKI SPORTIST - KK KUMANOVO 2009