Almost reaching the 100th point, having an overwhelming game against Paks, we beat the guest team on the first meeting of the semifinal in Alba Regia gym.
Ryan Pearson convalesced from hand injury, but the other centre player, Jerrell Wright hasn’t recovered yet, his tight muscles got injured, so he was sitting on the bench in training jeans, watching his team mates limbering up. The first three actions were successful neither from Paks nor Fehérvár, but then Kenny Chery scored three penalties after a fault, then Anthony Myles scored 4 points. The unwell guest players were able to score only after 30 seconds, 7-2. The next two actions were run by Fehérvár, they succeeded in scoring other 4 points, at 11-2 home leading the head coach of Paks, Schmidt Béla asked his first timeout. It did not help his players a lot, we replied for their baskets double time, for instance Péter Lóránt scored 10 points, 25-8. They gathered themselves by the end of the first quarter, but the difference was still substantial after 10 minutes, 31-17.
The second quarter was based on the same schema, the team of Paks could not throw a basket, in the home team Ryan Pearson and Luka Markovic were the most active ones in this time period, they only increased the difference. At 44-22 home leading Ryan Pearson warned the referees about the bleeding scar on his forehead. He left the court for a little time, he went to the dressing room with the team doctor. Paks started to wake up, the difference decreased for 15 points, then Branislav Dzunic asked timeout, 47-32. The short break was useful, the first half was closed by the triple shot of Lóránt, the scoreboard showed 52-34 in the break, the open questions were answered.
After the occurrence the team of Paks gathered themselves, which was enough to keep the rythm with TLI-Alba. Alexander Fomine was the most active player of the opponent team, on the home side so was Luka Markovic. In 30 seconds he got two technical faults, so he had to leave the court at 70-51 home leading. In the third quarter the opponent team could not get closer to us, the last 10 minutes started and the players of TLI-Alba were ready to finish the derby. At 76-57 Paks tried to decrease their disadvantage, but Fehérvár had response for everything. In the last minutes turned on a higher degree, the only question was whether we would be able to reach the 100th point or not. The decision was in Pearson’s hand, but he missed one of his penalties, so at the end of the game the scoreboard showed 99-77.
Everything worked as we had planned, the first game of the semifinal was awesome, two games left, 1-0, the next game is going to be on Saturday at 6 pm in Paks.
TLI-Alba Fehérvár – Atomerőmű SE 99-77 (31-17,21-17,24-23, 23-20)
Translated by: Dóri Polczer