Mega Hypo Leasing took the bronze

Macedonians Feni Industries suffered another hard loss in the Eurohold Balkan League Final Four, as Mega Hypo Leasing defeated them by an 18-point margin - 78-60 - to win 3rd place in the inaugural season of the competition. For the young Serbs it was a bit of a consolation after they were unlucky to lose by just 2 points in yesterday`s semi versus Final Four hosts Rilski Sportist and it is definitely a boost for them to keep improving, as they had their fisrt taste of international competition during the current season.

Mega Hypo Leasing had a good start and took a 6-0 lead. For a moment it looked like Feni Industries were about to surrender this 3/4 place game quickly, after being soundly beaten by Fersped Rabotnicki in yesterday`s semifinal. But they soon proved it was not the case, as they tied the scores at 10-10 and even led 10-12 and then 14-16. Feni star player Donald Cole started much better than the previous night and already had 9 points to his name at that stage. Mega shooting guard Stefan Stojacic was having a nice offensive performance too and quickly notched up 8 points. Feni kept that two point advantage for a while, but led by 1 after the end of the first quarter - 21-22.
 
Dusan Katnic`s three-pointer at the start of the second period meant Mega were back in front in this game, but Cole`s dunk tied it at 24-24. Yet, the Serbians had the upper hand now, leading by 2-4 points initially and then by 5 on Stojacic`s trey - 31-26. A 6-point run by the Macedonian team temporarily turned the tables again with about 3 minutes to go to half-time (31-32), but then Mega got back in front once more and led all the way to the break, when the scores were set at 38-35. Katnic had 9 points in that second quarter alone and 15 in his tally for the first half.
 
A three-pointer by young Aleksandar Mitrovic started a 14-0 third quarter run by the Serbian team, which took the scores to 53-37 and decided the game in their favour. Feni`s downslide stopped with about 3 minutes to go in the third period, but it was already too late. Now Mega were not too fussed and happy just to hold on to a 13-14 point lead, although it dropped to 11 at the 30 minute mark - 58-47.
 
Feni were able to cut their deficit a bit further - to 9 points at the start of the last quarter, but their opponent soon restored the 13-point margin with less than 7 minutes to go to the end. Mega`s top scorer and assist-maker of the game Katnic was ejected for 5 fouls (his teammate and namesake Cvetkovic had left for the same reason even earlier) but the Serbs weren`t bothered too much. They just kept their Macedonian opponents at bay, maintaining a double-digit margin as the minutes of the game were running out. Anyway, Feni`s main man Cole and his frontcourt partner Zlatko Gocevski were soon fouled out too, which made any turn-around in the remaining few minutes even more unlikely. It didn`t happen and Mega Hypo Leasing even increased their advantage a bit to win by 18 at the end - 78-60.
 
Dusan Katnic and Stefan Stojacic co-led the scoring for the winning team at the end with 22 points each, as the former had to leave prematurely, while the latter had strong performances in the first and the fourth quarter. Katnic also added 7 assists. Strahinja Dragicevis was much quieter in offence, compared to yesterday (a mere 2 points this time around and none from the field), but contributed 8 rebounds for the victory.
 
Donald Cole had the most points for Feni - 20, before his own early exit for 5 fouls. Slobodan Mihajlovski had a double double of 13 points and 10 boards.