ALEPPO (Syria) - Al-Ittihad Ahli suffered another beatdown at the hands of Shahrdary Gorgan on Thursday night, but the team's morale was hardly shaken whatsoever.

The Syrian ball club are already assured of a spot to the FIBA WASL-West Asia League Season 2 Qualification to Semi-Finals anyway, and the squad is just trying to gain as much experience as they can in an aim to be more equipped once the said phase comes.

"We're focusing on the next round," veteran guard Anthouny Bakar offered during the postgame presser of their 80-65 loss at the Al Hamadaniyeh Stadium.

Al-Ittihad Ahli were actually coming off a 74-62 victory over Al Naft last January 10 in Baghdad, which formalized their entry into the sub-zone's Final Phase.

They appeared to have carried over the momentum against the Iranian side, when they zoomed to an early lead and finished the first 10 minutes holding an 18-13 advantage.

Unfortunately, the gap in terms of experience showed up in the following frame. Gorgan got into their flow and dominated the quarter, scoring 20 points while limiting the home team to just seven points to head into the halftime break ahead, 33-25.

The fixture would be in the visitors' favor from then on, with Will Cherry helping out Sina Vahedi and Norvel Pelle for an 11-0 start into the third canto to start the rout.

The trio combined for 56 points to lead Gorgan, which clinched the first ticket to the West Asia League Semi-Finals following the win that also extended their perfect run to five.

"We started well because we didn't have many turnovers," opined Al-Ittihad head coach Safouane Ferjani. "We were aggressive on defense. After, we made some turnovers, we were soft on defense, and they (Gorgan) made many easy points especially inside."

Turnovers did hurt them a lot as they committed 20, the second-most they had this season. The most they had, you wonder, were 23, which they had against, coincidentally, against Gorgan as well in their first encounter last November 29 that saw them lose big, 121-70.

"We had a good first half ... maybe at the start of the third quarter, we were too soft on defense. We made many turnovers. Against this kind of team, they will lead directly," said Ferjani.

But then again, it's a result that Al-Ittihad are charging to experience, with the belief that it would be beneficial especially in their aim of going deep into the next round.

"We played today without pressure," Bakar stated. "We know we're facing the Iranian champions, with two very good imports, very good national team players, while we played only with one American. We know that it's going to be a very hard game."

"Despite everything, we are happy with the result. Our focus now is on the Qualification to Semi-Finals ... Our goal is to qualify for the next round," he added.

FIBA