FIBA – Women’s Day 3 Group A Round-Up

BEIJING (Olympics) - EuroBasket 2007 winners Russia and 2006 FIBA World Champions Australia took decisive steps towards a place in the quarterfinals of the Olympic women’s basketball competition on Wednesday.

Russia pulled away from an equal first two quarters to down Belarus 71-65 and Australia brooked no challenge from their rivals and beat Korea 90-62.

It was the third win from as many games for both Russia and Australia in the Group A preliminary league.

In the other game of the day, Latvia snatched victory from jaws of defeat, eking out a 79-78 win over Brazil.

Korea, Belarus and Latvia are all 1-2 in win-loss record with Friday’s games assuming great significance. Brazil are 0-3 and need to beat Russia to keep their chances alive. Australia play Latvia and Korea match wits with Belarus.

Australia stepped up the gas early in the game with a 19-5 run that took the wind off the Korean sails and gave the Opals a 23-14 lead at the end of the first quarter.

That early onslaught primed them for the rest of the game and the Jan Stirling-trained squad recorded a 13-0 run in the second quarter to head into the changing rooms 47-33 ahead.

Thereafter, Australia only consolidated their position and enhanced the margin of victory.

Penny Taylor and Suzy Batkovic shared the scoring honors for Australia with 18 points each. Batkovic also collected 10 rebounds.

Beon Yeon-Ha struck an incredible three-pointer rate, sinking six of her seven attempts, to top the scoring for the game with 20 points.

Russia and Belarus sparred almost equally for the first two quarters and for a good part of the third.

But a 10-0 burst, starting with 3:50 left in the third quarter took Russia to go into the fourth 52-40 ahead. A lead that proved unsurpassable for Belarus, who had finished third to Russia’s title-triumph at last year’s EuroBasket.

Belarus had scoring sprees of their own, cutting down Russia’s lead to four on two occasions in the fourth quarter, but never got closer.

Maria Stepanova topped the scoring for Russia with 13 points, followed by Ilona Korstin with 11 and Becky Hammon with 10.

“I hope we will play better and better,” Stepanova said.

“But the next game (against Brazil) will be harder. We need to watch a video and see the mistakes we have made in this game, what went wrong, in terms of turnovers and we must get more rebounds.”

“We played against Belarus in the preparations,” the CSKA Samara center added. “We were familiar with their play. We knew it was going to be tough and that they would fight until the end.”

Natallia Marchanka recorded a game-high 16 points for Belarus as Yelena Leuchanka pulled down 12 rebounds to go with her 15 points.

“We went on the floor ready to win this game,” Marchanka, who plies her trade for Dinamo-Energiya Novosibirsk in the Russian league, said.

“It was tough, it was challenging. We fought until the end but we didn’t make some very important shots and I wouldn’t say that we gave up, but that didn’t help us today,” she added.

“Russia is a very experienced team and that is what hindered us.”

Brazil squandered the advantage of leading three quarters and lost the game, for the second time in three outings.

The South Americans who had lost to Korea, in Overtime, having been ahead for most of the game underwent a similar fate against Latvia.

Latvia got their first lead in the game only in the opening moments of the final quarter capped their rally to keep themselves alive in the race for a quarterfinal place.

Skipper Anete Jekabsone-Zogota who returned a game-high 25 points, sealed the issue for Latvia with her dribble into the lane. Brazil did have a chance after that, but veteran guard Adriana Pinto’s attempt from 10-feet away bounced back from the board and out, off the front rim.

Adriana had earlier scored 12 points to support Soeli Zakrzeski’s 16 and Kelly Santos’ 15.

“They had a very good ending,” Adriana said. “We had many mistakes in defense as we weren’t able to stop their shots and their easy lay-up.”


Scores

Russia 71 (Maria Stephanova 13, Ilona Korstin 11, Rebecca Hammon 10) bt Belarus 65 (Natallia Marchanka 16, Yelena Leuchanka 15, Katsiaryna Snytsina 15). Quarterwise Scores: 20-19, 35-27, 52-40.

Latvia 79 (Anete Jekabsone-Zogota 25, Ieva Kublina 14, Gunta Basko 12) bt Brazil 78 (Soeli Zakrzeski 16, Kelly Santos 15, Adriana Pinto 12). Quarterwise Scores: 14-23, 31-36, 57-59.

Australia 90 (Penny Taylor 18, Suzy Batkovic 18, Lauren Jackson 16) bt Korea 62 (Beon Yeon-Ha 20, Jung Sun-Min 11). Quarterwise Scores: 23-14, 47-33, 73-50.

FIBA