Rilski Sportist one breath away from the Final Four

One of the top seeded teams in the Eurohold Balkan League quarterfinals - Bulgarians Rilski Sportist - took a crucial 10 point advantage before the home leg, as they defeated Serbian rival Radnicki 034 Group in Kragujevac 81-91.
 
Now Radnicki, who had finished 4th in Group A, will have to figuratively and literally climb a mountain, as they travel next week to the high altitude town of Samokov with the weight of that 10 point deficit on their shoulders. It was the 2nd season defining home loss for the Serbian team in just two days, as yesterday they succumbed to domestic league rivals Napredak Rubin Krusevac in a head-to-head battle for the all-important 3rd place in that league.
 
Rilski Sportist are currently on the other end of the scale of emotions, as they are on a roll - an away victory versus Fersped Rabotnicki in Skopje last week in the BIBL Group B 1st place decider, then a win at the weekend in the Bulgarian NBL over mighty Lukoil Academic and now - an almost certain ticket for the Final Four in the Balkan League, barring a desaster in the return leg next week.
 
Tonight Radnicki 034 Group were the first to take a small lead though, up to 4 points but it only lasted until the 4th minute. Branko Mirkovic`s three-pointer and Ivan Lilov`s lay up on the break turned it all around at 7-8 and then Rilski Sportist even led 7-12, extending their run to 0-9. The visitors had the upper hand for the rest of the first quarter (it ended at 18-22) and the opening few minutes of the second and the main reason for that was Dragoslav Papic`s scoring spree - he netted 2 triples and a total of 11 points in the first period and then another 9 in the second, so at the half-time break he had already notched up 20.
 
When Papic opened an 8-point margin with his second 3-pointer in the 9th minute, it looked like his team were already running away with it. But they didn`t play as good defence in the next 10 minutes and allowed Marko Pavlovic, Ivan Milosevic and Igor Mijajlovic to score a lot and bring their team back in contention. Between the 12th and the 18th minute it was a really close affair as for quite a while each team was hitting the target and taking a 1-point lead with its next possesion. But then Rajko Kljajevic missed a free throw that would have given his team another of those tiny leads and Bogdan Boev connected with his second trey of the game to make it 40-43. Rilski Sportist held on to that 3-point lead until half-time - 46-49.
 
But then the third quarter was when the visiting team showed why they were the winners of Group B of the Regular Season. The played great defence and only allowed Radnicki to score 12 points in those 10 minutes, while during the same span Papic added 5 to his tally and 3 more of his teammates were into double digits at that stage. Travis Peterson reached that mark (i.e. 11) in the 32nd minute, after he scored 2 of the first 3 baskets for Rilski Sportist at the start of the last quarter. It had begun with the scores at 58-73, but the margin grew to 19 points with the second of those Peterson baskets.
 
The Serbian team never managed to recover completely. Their deficit fluctuated between 15 and 19 points until the mid-point of that last period. Then a triple by Mijajlovic and dunk by Danilo Draskovic in consecutive possessions brought it down to 12 at 71-83. Then it went up again and down again, but time was flying by and even with a single digit deficit the Radnicki players knew they were up against it for the return leg in Samokov. In the end they didn`t have that either, as Draskovic missed one of his free throws with 13 seconds to go and it ended at 81-91.
 
Dragoslav Papic only scored 2 more points in the closing 10 minutes (a total 7 in the second half) and finished with 27. But he also grabbed 14 rebounds and was the undisputed MVP of the game versus his compatriots. Travis Peterson finished strong with 8 points in the last quarter and a total of 15 for the game. He also had a double double (his 4th already in the BIBL this season) as he collected 11 boards. Branko Mirkovic was the second best scorer for the visitors with 20 points. Ivan Lilov had 13 and Bogdan Boev - 10 - to round up a magnificent performance for the Rilski Sportist starting 5 tonight.
 
Igor Mijajlovic led the scorers of Radnicki 034 Group with his 20 points, Danilo Draskovic added 15 and 10 rebounds, while Ivan Milosevic had 16 points off the bench.