LEWIS Sims poured in 28 points to lead Madisons APOEL over the Ukrainian team Khimik Yuzhny 84-78 in the fifth round of the FIBA EuroChallenge Regular Season Group B on Tuesday night at the FSC Olyimp arena in Yuzhny.
“The last couple weeks we won all our games, in Europe and in Cyprus. We came here to win the game. The first half we played hard and we put a gap between us and our opponents. In the second half we didn’t play so well but it was enough to win this game,” commented Madisons APOEL’s Gerben van Dorpe after the game.
The Cypriot champions held a 44-25 lead at the end of the first half, but the hosts did not give up and they tried to climb back into the game in the third period. LaVell Blanchard closed the gap to 11 points at 62-51 when he hit the three-pointer with 1:47 left in third, but the visitors managed to finish the quarter on a 5-1 run and enter the final ten minutes with a 15-point advantage.
Dmitriy Baselevskiy’s men then made another push in the fourth quarter but the closest they could get was a seven-point deficit at 76-69 when Dmytro Khodov made a lay-up with just under four minutes remaining; however, they had no strength to do anything else as the Cypriot team deservedly celebrated a victory that improves their record to 4-1.
“The way we played in the first half was quite different from what we did in the second half when we played as well as it gets. The unpredictability of our young players really hurt us. We have two leaders on the court, but all other players must understand that they have to also work hard on the court,” Baselevskiy expressed his disappointment.
Blanchard led Khimik Yuzhny with 24 points and a game-high 14 rebounds, while Darrel Mitchell added 20 points. Khodov and Andriy Agafonov finished the game with 11 and 10 points respectively.
Wykeen Kelly scored 14 points for Madisons APOEL, while Brandon Heath chipped in with 11.
On the same night the other two Cypriot teams that compete in the FIBA EuroChallenge both recorded victories. Keravnos Strovolos topped KK Zagreb of Croatia 82-81 at the Kostas Papaellinas Arena in Strovolos, while the national cup holders Proteas EKA AEL blew out Belgian team Dexia Mons-Hainaut 86-68 at the Nikos Solomonides Arena in Limassol.
Bryant Smith led the way for Keravnos Strovolos with 29 points.
“This was a very good and a tough game against a very good team. Except for the first quarter when we controlled the game the rest of the game belonged to our opponents. We tried to minimize our turnovers and I believe that we succeeded to do this; we finished with only seven turnovers for the entire game. This helped us to win the game in the end, while this victory will also help us in the remaining of the season of our domestic league,” said Keravnos Strovolos’ guard Andreas Pilavas.
Yiannos Yiannoulis went nine for nine from the field, while missing a single free throw shot in eight attempts to lead Proteas EKA AEL with 26 points. After this win Proteas EKA AEL shares the top position in Group D with Elan Chalon of France as both teams have three wins in five games.
