BC “Shoumen” appropriately ended its strongest season after returning to the elite of Bulgarian basketball – with a victory. In a match of the last 32 round of Sesame NBL, our team prevailed over “Yambol” with 84:71. Thus, “Shoumen” ends the championship with 15 wins and 17 losses in the 7th position in the final ranking. “Yambol” will surely miss the playoffs, as it remains with an asset of 12 wins and 20 losses and there is no way to overtake “Levski” for the 8th place.
The match started evenly, but with a lot of mistakes for both teams. However, after the initial exchange of baskets, the Shumen basketball players began to play much more effectively in attack. Emilian Grudov led the Shumen attack together with Rosen Ivanov and Nikola Nikolov, who scored once each behind the trio. For “Yambol”, the usual suspects – Ivan Lilov and Pavel Marinov made sure that the guests did not fall behind with a double-digit asset, and the first part ended with only 5 points for “Shumen” – 23:18.
And the second quarter began with an exchange of baskets, but the defense of “Shoumen” began to act very effectively and a series of 15 consecutive points followed, which came mainly after quick attacks for our team. Of course, the most experienced in the visiting team – Pavel Marinov stopped our series with two baskets in a row from the middle distance, and after him Matushev also scored a basket with a foul, returning “Yambol” to 12 points behind “Shumen” – 40:28. By the end of the half, the teams exchanged two more baskets, but Shumen scored a third to go into the break with a 14 lead – 46:32.
“Noisy” started the third quarter strongly as well. Our team’s defense continued to limit the visitors and in 5 minutes of play they scored only 5 points. Justin Kohaida, David Rollins and Karim Mane increased Shumen’s lead to 19 points. At the end of the half, Yambol tied the game and still started to score. Matushev was the main man in the attack of the guests in those minutes and the guests still came close to 14 points. However, David Rollins closed the part with a nice basket for 66:49 in favor of Shumen.
In the last quarter, Shumen seemed to have decided that they had already won the game. “Yambol” took advantage and in three minutes of play shortened their deficit to 11 points again thanks to Matushev, assisted by Nikola Nankov. Shumen, however, had no intention of losing the match. Kohaida continued to line up under both baskets and steal every single fight. The Shumen center finished the game with an unheard of 26 rebounds. This gave Shumen an opportunity to organize at least one more attack. Emilian Grudov and David Rollins made sure that the difference remained in double digits, despite the attempts of Andon Vachev and Matushev to do the impossible and turn the match in their favor. “Shoumen” closed the match smoothly with 84:71.
In the first round of the playoffs, “Shoumen” will face one of the favorites for the title – Rila Sportsist. The matches are scheduled for April 29, May 1 and May 3. The series is played up to 2 wins from three matches, with the first match being hosted by Rila athletes, the second match on May 1 will be played at Arena Shumen, and if it reaches a third match, the host will again be hosted by Rila athletes, as a team with better numbers during the regular season.
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Tags: Shumen victory Yambol Shumenonline
