Mega HL`s valiant effort awarded with 11-point victory

The young and talented Mega Hypo Leasing team have done the best they can for a shot at a place in the Final Four. Tonight they won the first leg game of the last BIBL quarterfinal tie, upsetting favourites Swisslion Takovo. The final score of 81-70 is a good reflection of what went on, as Mega HL led most of the time in front of their own fans at CKS Sumice, although never by too much. The more experienced Lions did what they had to remain the favourites before the return game in Vrsac. But they surely would have preferred to carry some sort of an advantage into that one, instead of that 11-point deficit.
 
Mega HL did well to build a small lead in the very first few minutes and were in front by 4 at the midpoint of the 1st quarter - 17-13. The visiting team managed to equalize by the end of that period - 19-19. Then the enthusiastic home team pushed further and in the first few minutes of the 2nd quarter amassed a new 7-point advantage, which they kept until half-time - 44-37.
 
They were still leading by those 7 points with more than 4 minutes played after the break - 50-43. In that 5th minute though the Lions pulled back for a while then trailed by 6 points again, but were able to cut their deficit to just 2 points at the end of the 3rd quarter. The 4th one started at 58-56, with a quick surge by the Mega HL to make it 63-56. That time around the Lions couldn`t react straight away and were soon trailing by even more - 72-61 with just 5 minutes to go.
 
That was when their bigger experience bore fruit, as they didn`t allow the young home team to extend their lead even further and thus have more of a chance for the return game. Instead the Lions kept themselves within a distance of 13 points and were about to lose by exactly that margin, but they managed to score with their final possession, following a time-out with 21 seconds to go. Thus they cut it to 11 points at the final buzzer - 81-70 - a deficit that the more highly rated Swisslion Takovo team shouldn`t find so hard to make up for in the second leg at home.
 
Yet, those two Serbian teams have played a good game in Belgrade, that still keeps some level of suspense for the second clash on Tuesday next week. Special credit for that goes to the up-and-coming Mega Hypo Leasing team, who gave their best to keep the Lions on the alert and will try to do the same in 4 days time as well.
 
As per usual, Stefan Stojacic lead the scorers for Mega HL, but tonight he was equal on points (20 apiece) with another of his team-mates - point guard Dusan Katnic. A couple more of Mega`s starters delivered nicely in that department - Uros Nikolic and Strahinja Dragicevic with 14 points each. Nikolic grabbed 13 rebounds too, for his double double.
 
Swisslion Takovo point guard Sasa Ocokoljic was able to beat both Stojacic and Katnic in scoring with 21 points, although his team didn`t beat Mega tonight, which was arguably more important. Radovan Markovic had 12 points, while Branko Jorovic and Dusan Knezevic added double digits too (10 each) off the bench.