MIES (Switzerland) - What's sweeter than getting your first-ever victory in the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL? Well, getting your first-ever victory in thrilling fashion.
That's what happened to Trapani Shark, which won't forget Tuesday's action in Season X. Two more teams can enjoy victories to start another week in the BCL Regular Season.
Bnei Penlink Herzliya 74-77 Trapani Shark
You never forget your first European victory, and Trapani fans surely aren't an exception to this rule.
The team from Sicily couldn't imagine they would have to travel to Czechia to celebrate a historic night, but that's what happened as they got their first-ever BCL win with a solid 77-74 outcome against Bnei Penlink Herzliya.
It's not only a historic win, but an impressive one in Group D as well.
Following this result, the Israeli side remain winless at 0-3, while Trapani got a slight advantage in the race for the Play-Ins.
Jasmin Repesa's team took control of the game at the start of the second quarter, escaped for the temporary 11-point lead (55-44) with three minutes to go in the third, and survived Herzliya's comeback attempt.
In order to do so, Jordan Ford (14 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists) and Matt Hurt (14 points and 5 rebounds) combined for 28 points.
Hurt vastly improved from his first two BCL appearances, when he collected 12 points and 6 rebounds over the defeats to La Laguna Tenerife and Tofas Bursa.
We are very happy for the first European win in the history of Trapani for sure.
"We know at the same time that we have to play better defense and improve on keeping the situation under control when the games are going our way. We don't have to risk like we did at the end, but a win is a win, and we keep building day by day," he said.
"Italian people have a saying, 'ultima spiaggia,' which is the last possibility to stay in the game. And I mean to have the possibility of reaching the next round. We prepared the game really well. We came here really convinced and determined that we had to do everything to win it," Repesa added.
Chinanu Onuaku (21 points and 5 rebounds) and Elijah Stewart (16 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists) had promising individual nights, but they couldn't avoid their team's loss.
Tofas Bursa 64-81 La Laguna Tenerife
While Trapani got their first win in Group D, Tenerife's winning streak continued by stopping Tofas' perfect run.
The hosts almost completed a comeback in the third quarter, but eventually Txus Vidorreta's team found a way to extend the lead even by more than 20 points, returning home with the 81-64 road win and the 3-0 record.
This was Tenerife's 10th consecutive road victory in the BCL, and the 10th win out of 11 against a Turkish team in the competition's Regular Season.
Age passes for everybody but Giorgi Shermadini (10 points and 11 rebounds) and Marcelinho Huertas (15 points, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds), who both contributed as usual to the black-and-gold team's victory.
Bruno Fitipaldo added 15 points (over 3-of-6 from deep and 4-of-4 at the line) and 4 assists as well in the win.
Alex Perez had a losing effort of 10 points, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds. This means he managed to extend his 10+ points run in the competition to seven straight BCL games.
Marek Blazevic had 12 points and 5 boards.
"We did our game plan very well, especially focused on defense, trying to control the scoring situations with Marek Blazevic, Thomasson, and Alex Perez. The key of the game was in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, when they had good moments, we were able to control these moments using timeouts very well on offense," Tenerife head coach Txus Vidorreta said.
Patrioti Levice 69-71 AEK BC
Patrioti Levice thought they could celebrate a stunning win in their first BCL game played in front of their fans.
The Slovakian side had a 13-4 run to get the 64-62 lead with 3:27 minutes to go in the fourth and final stanza, but AEK BC proved their resiliency and stayed true to their game.
With Frank Bartley stepping up to score 7 of their following 9 points, the Queen emerged victorious with the 71-69 win in the GOPASS Arena.
Therefore, they improved to 3-0 in Group F, while Levice had a step back at 1-2.
AEK's newcomers stepped up in the road win: Frank Bartley (21 points), Chris Silva (13 points and 14 rebounds), and Lukas Lekavicius (10 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists) all had impressive performances in Slovakia.
RaiQuan Gray flirted with a double-double as he finished with 16 points and 8 rebounds as well.
Talking about commitment and sacrifice, Rickey McGill surely had both for Levice in the narrow defeat against the Greek powerhouse, as he spent 40:00 minutes on the court to finish with 20 points, 7 assists, and 4 steals.
Aatu Kivimaki had a number of big plays down the stretch for the hosts, and took a three-pointer from the right 45 as time expired.
The crowd held their breath, but it bounced off the rim, keeping AEK's record perfect after the toughest of challenges for them so far.
"Historical game," Levice head coach Michal Madzin exclaimed, then continued:
"I had a dream that we were going to play a game that we were not going to forget for the rest of our lives and I think we played this kind of game. So, at least we fought to have this kind of game. It came up to the last shot, and I know that for Aatu this is his shot. I saw it fly into the basket...but like I said, we came to this point with some big shots already, maybe it's fair that sport gives us this lesson."