First win for Beroe

BC Beroe recorded its first win in SIGAL-UNIQA Balkan League. The team from Stara Zagora hosted KK Kozuv and completed a comeback to take 78-73 victory. It was the debuting one for them as they had started with four straight defeats. It also kept their chances of reaching the Second Stage directly alive but to do so Sigal Prishtina have to lose to Mornar and then Beroe have to win in Prishtina in the last round. However if Sigal win against Mornar the last match will have no importance for the final standings. Kozuv finished the group with 2 wins and 4 defeats and will have to wait for the final round to know if they will go directly to the Second Stage. 
 
It was an even start to the game as Kozuv were the first to pull away by scoring 5 straight points. The hosts managed to retake the lead but it didn′t last long as the visitors had a 3-point advantage after ten minutes. The start of the second quarter led to the first real break away as Kozuv opened it with 15-2 run to go up by 16. In those minutes Brandon Penn played an important role and he couldn′t be stopped bu the home team. Beroe however tried to make a push and cut the deficit in to single digits but the visitors finished better the first half and held a 15-point advantage.
 
Kozuv controlled the game for most of the third quarter and their advantage was 10 or more points. In the final minutes of it however the home side managed to cut some of the deficit and after a 6-0 run cappped by Nikolay Nikolov triple, it wend down to 5 points before the final ten minutes.
 
Nikolov opened the fourth quarter with another triple and then Vaklinov scored under the basket to tie the score for first time since the first quarter. Penn responded right away and in the next few minutes Kozuv were leading by 2. Finally with 3.47 to go the score was tied once again and a minute later another triple by Nikolov put the hosts up by 2. Sterjov managed to score for the visitors and then Nikolov again made a basket as with 1.13 to go the lead reached 3 points. With 25 seconds to play and Beroe leading by 3, the visitors had a chance to tie but Glavchev′s shot was blocked. Then Moore was fouled and made only one free throw which actually decided the outcome with 7 seconds to go.
 
Ashton Moore was top scorer for the winners with 18 points. Key role in the comeback had Nikolay Nikolov who scored 16 points as Stanislav Vaklinov added 13 and 8 rebounds.
 
For the visitors 24 points and 6 rebounds had Brandon Penn as Aleksandar Sterjov added 16 points.