AEK beat Omonia in Cyprus basketball league

MILUTIN Aleksic scored 15 points to lift AEK Larnaca over Omonia 72-69 in the final game of the national basketball championship Round 13 on Monday night at the Tassos Papadopoulos Eleftheria Athletic Centre in Nicosia.

The hosts held a three-point lead at 65-62 with two minutes remaining, but the visitors created a 6-0 run to make it 68-65 with 36 seconds left on the clock.

Akida Maclain then made a basket to reduce his team’s deficit to a single point at 68-67 and Nikolas Papadopoulos converted two free throws to restore a three-point advantage at 70-67 seven seconds before the final buzzer.

Kyriakos Adamou at this point had no time-outs left and luckily for him, Papadopoulos fouled Dennis Horner on a three-point attempt, but the American forward managed to score only two of the charity stripe shots to make it 70-69.

Iacovos Panteli was then sent to the free-throw line and he kept his cool, making both foul shots and setting up the final score at 72-69.

The home team had a chance to level the scores, but Giorgos Konstantinou’s long range effort barely hit the rim.

AEK have now improved to a 4-8 record and have a good chance of finishing sixth overall in the regular season, while Omonia remain rock bottom with two wins and nine losses.

They will have to search for their chance to reach the playoffs in the remaining five games out of which four will be played on their home court.

Linas Juknevicius led Omonia with 16 points, while Maclain added 13.

Horner and Deuron Bostick had 11 and 10 points respectively.

Juknevicius also drew 10 fouls and dished out six assists.

Panteli netted 11 points for AEK, while Aleksic, who played his last game for the Larnaca outfit before joining the Greek A1 team Panionios, also drew 10 fouls.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.