Kotka’s Peli-Karhut stretched to an incredible away victory in the basketball women’s EuroCup against Belgian Castors Braine.
Peli-Karhut, participating in basketball’s EuroCup for the first time, made a wild ascent and with great success in the final quarter (26–11) to an almost sensational 65–64 away victory from the familiar women’s national basketball team, Lotta-Maj Lahtinen represented by Castors Braine late Wednesday.
– It’s a bit speechless, but it was a great victory! This was a really big win for me personally and for the Peli-Karhui as a whole, said PeKa’s coach Roope Mäkeläfor whom the victory was also the first of his head coaching career at the international level.
PeKa had the most losses in the match with 17 points, but took the lead and won for the last 16 seconds with a 15-point advantage in the last period.
– We defended the entire game with an international-level defense, but in the last ten minutes the attack also started to roll. We were more aggressive on the offensive end, the throw started to drop and we trusted in our own doing. The players played with a lot of heart, praised the coach.
The Belgian team Castors Braine held the lead in the match for 39 minutes and 11 seconds, but it didn’t help in the end when PeKan Lauren Heard took the Kotkala club into the lead for the first time in the match (65–64) just 16 seconds before the decision.
Mäkelä: The home team got one extra seam at the end
– Something similar happened here, that they got one extra attack. The last side line was clearly ours, but they still whistled it to the home team. Miraculously, the game is played from an international level basket, and there is no video challenge here at all. I didn’t get to challenge it, and they got one more chance, but luckily that was taken care of, sighed Mäkelä.
A good five minutes before the end, PeKa was still losing by ten points, 49–59. Elina Koskimies At the end, he sunk two triples and in addition, the number one hero Heard, who collected 20/4/5s, one and Anissa Pounds one.
– At that point, there was even a phrase that the opponent was a piece of shit, but we weren’t. I said that we need to move more all the time and we got the easiest throwing positions then that’s it. We were off to a good start, notes Mäkelä.
PeKa already struggled for a win in the opening match of the EuroCup, but even then had to bow to the Romanian CSM Constanta at home 85–95 (38–47).
– We defended much better now than in the opening game. It took us a while to get used to this international rhythm. We emphasized all the time that we have to play hard, Mäkelä said.
Castors Braine, represented by Lahtinen, had defeated the German team Keltern in the F group of the Eurocup last week, which will arrive next week, Wednesday, October 23, as a guest of PeKa.
Standings and upcoming games, match statistics from here