Derby win for Haspe

SV70- BG 93:91 (20:21, 29:17, 18:28, 13:14, 13:10)

Great derby win on Saturday evening for the men of Haspe. It is always an exciting game when Haspe and BG play and in Haspe on Saturday it was no different. It took an extra 5 minutes in over time to decide a winner for this game. Both teams came out and played at a high level, but on this night the men of Haspe was the better team. We knew it would take a nearly perfect game from us to get a win and the guys stepped up and gave a great team performance. BG has always been a top team in this league. Going into this game no one believed we had a chance other then the team and the great fans of Haspe. 

Our goal defensively was to not let BG get hot from the 3 point line and control them on the offensive rebounds. They have two of the top 3 point shooters in the league with Nedzinskas and Golembiowski. If they get going early it can be a long night. Also we needed to control Zahariev on the offensive rebounds. BG is too good of a team to give them extra possession. In the first quarter we did a great job of this, but still trail 20:21 at the end of the quarter. 

In the second quarter we played what I believe was our best basketball. We finally got stops on defense and was able to get out on fastbreak and attack. I think we are at our best when can play fast and it showed. We did a great job finding the open guys in transition and it resulted in open 3 pointers for us. At half time we lead 49:38, but we knew the game was far from over. I told the guys to ready for BG to make a run but not to panic.

BG started the third quarter like I expected.  They came out and there top players made big time plays. They started with two 3 pointers and the 11 point lead was now only 5 points. The guys responded good, we got back focused on defense and did a better job chasing them off the 3 point line for the restof the game.  The game got physical and lead to double technical fouls. Very unlucky for us because it was the 5 fouls for our starting center. Later in the 4th quarter we had another big guy with 5 fouls and BG begin to attack us inside. We changed to zone to protect our last big guy from fouling out. After big shots from both team the game came down to one final shot with seconds left on the clock. Jeremy missed the game winner and sent the game into over time.

In over time, the guys again stepped up to the challenge scoring 13 points in 5 minutes of OT. This win showed me that we are right where we want to be. The guys never stopped fighting and always believed we could win the game. We had great leadership and great time from the bench guys. This was a great win not only for the team, but also for the club and the fans who support us each week. 

Scoring: Lewis 31, Luchterhandt 25, Voca 14, Bampoulis 10, Kiknadze 6, Spitale 4, Fouhy 3, Stockey, Paulsen, Wasielewski, Braun