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FIBA Europe U18 European Championship Women Division A
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FIBA Europe introduced the qualification round in 2007 to youth competitions.This change has been positive and has helped to improve the quality of the competition because every game from the preliminary rounds count until the knock-out stage.
However for the four teams that miss out on the qualification round they play in the classification games for 13th-16th place also known as the relegation round. But from this year onwards they play each other twice.
This means that the bottom two teams in this round robin table tournament are demoted to Division B.
Belgium and Latvia won promotion from Division B in 2008 and Hungary who won the Division B title last season battle with the Czech Republic in order to avoid the drop.
The remaining 12 teams have been split into two groups and continue the battle for the title. In addition to the title the top five teams from this championship will qualify for the 2011 U19 FIBA World Championship Women.
Group E: including full match report on: Slovenia are making waves
Group F: Italy and France book places in quarter-final
Relegation group: victories for Czech Republic and Latvia
Look back on the news from Day three
Group E: Slovenia are making waves
For years Nika Baric has been dominating teams at FIBA Europe Division B championship competitions and today she gave a little demonstration of her skills as she helped Slovenia beat the hosts Slovak Republic (78-73) in overtime.
She finished the game with 29 points, 12 assists and went a perfect 10-from-10 from the free-throw line.
Slovenia shocked the hosts as they dominated the first 20 minutes and let (32-24) at the interval.
The Slovak Republic have their own star players in Martina Kissová (21 points) and Denisa Domiterová (19 points).
These players stepped up for the hosts to come storming back and with 21 seconds left to play take the lead (66-64).
Slovenia had one last chance to save the game and Damir Grgic, the Slovenian coach knew that Baric would not have the freedom or space to get a last shot off. So he took the risk and went inside with Rebeka Abramovic who scored and drew the foul.
Abramovic was unable to hit the free-throws and the game went into overtime.
A trey by Kissová got the home fans chearing but Slovenia were back in fron with Baric, Eva Rupnik and Tjasa Gortnar all scoring.
Slovenia stayed in front all the way to the end.
The expected fireworks between Sweden and Spain never happened. It could be argued that either both teams played well defensively or that they just had a poor shooting day.
Spain led (9-6) after the first quarter in which both teams found it easier to miss than score.
Spain took hold of the game with an 8-0 run during the second quarter to go 10 points clear (21-11) with three minutes left to play before the break.
The teams continued with their poor shot selection as Spain went into the locker room leading (26-14).
Sweden were not able to get any three-point plays to work. The match was lost for good after Spain put together another 8-0 run.
Spain, leading (37-15) with 15 minutes left to play, controlled the tempo for the remaining time to win (50-38).
Queralt Casas (left) with 12 points and 7 rebounds was the pick of the player from Spain.
Russia made light work of Serbia with all 12 players getting onto the score sheet in the (88-44) win.
Svetlana Efimova and Yulia Poluyanova did the bulk of the scoring for Russia with 19 and 18 points each.
Ivana Brajkovic was the pick of the players from Serbia with 15 points.
The Russian had more or less ended the game as a contest by the 14th minute of the game while leading (30-9).
Sweden 38-50 Spain
Slovenia 78-73 Slovak Republic
Serbia 48-88 Russia
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Group F: Italy and France book places in quarter-final
Italy's perfect record continues as they ran out winners against Turkey (62-53).
The Italians had to work hard for the victory and were behind (28-30) at the break. Turkey's first half lead was mainly due to the work of Olcay Cakir who had 12 first-half points.
Italy closed down Cakir after the break, restricting her to just 2 points for the whole of the second half as they calmly regained control.
Francesca Dotto (left) scored 15 points for Italy while Beatrice Carta added 10 points and dished out 5 assists.
Lithuania found a simple solution for stopping Alina Iagupova from Ukraine. They went on a first-half blitz that sent them into the locker room leading (44-31).
They spread the scoring so that six players finished in double digits with Monika Grigalauskyte leading the way with 19 points. Laura Svaryte was next with 18 points.
he other players in double digits were Santa Okockyte with 14 points, while Neringa Skadaite (right) and Paulina Zaveckaite scored 11 points and finally Kriste Druskyte had 10 points.
Iagupova did score 29 points for Ukraine but it was not enough for her side to win the game.
France made it four wins in a row with a (66-56) victory against Poland.
Héléna Akmouche was the top scorer for France with 19 points and was joined in double digits by Lucie Barba and Eléonore Grossemy who scored 10 points each.
France and Italy are already assured a place in the quarter-finals.
Turkey 52-63 Italy
Ukraine 66-95 Lithuania
Poland 56-66 France
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Czech Republic and Latvia open with victories
Belgium should be left wondering what they have to do to win a game in this tournament. They were leading Latvia (59-55) with just over two minutes to play when disaster struck.
Lien Delmulle was called for a foul on Anete Kirsteine left). It was her 5th foul so she had to leave the game. To make matters worse, Kirsteine had three shots from the free-throw line.
She made all three and Latvia took control of the game and made 5-from-6 from the charity stripes to win the the game (63-59).
Kirsteine led the scoring with 24 points.
For Belgium it was a disappointing finish to an entertaining game. They scored the first 7 points of the games and despite allowing Latvia back into the game they edged the first quarter (13-12).
The second quarter was even with both teams finding good shots from beyond the arc. Belgium went into the locker room ahead (32-31) and stretched the lead by the end of the third quarter (53-48).
All the hard work of Lut De Meyer and Emmanuella Mayombo with 16 and 14 points each came to nothing as Belgium allowed the game to slip out of their hands.
Karolína Elhotová fired in back to back treys to open the scoring for the Czech Republic in their game against Hungary.
Hungary played catch-up for for about five minutes (8-9) and then struggled in stopping Barbora Kaspárková.
The Czech Republic took full advantage of their opponents' trouble and opened up a small gap (19-11) by the end of the first quarter.
The lead grew to 14 points after 15 minutes. The Czech Republic then stepped off the accelerator and paced themselves to victory (66-51).
Elhotová led the scoring with 16 points while Kaspárková added 13 points and collected 12 rebounds.
Hungary 51-66 Czech Republic
Belgium 59-63 Latvia
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FIBA Europe U18 European Championship Women picture credits:
womensbasketball-in-france.com
FIBA Europe
Date created: 02 August 2010
