Hungarian band on Thursday In the opening match He played against Canada, which he eventually did Lost 67-55 – This is mainly due to the large number of balls sold. On Friday, our competitor, Japan, began the qualifying competitions with a surprise victory over the Spanish team 86-75.
In the first match of the first round, on Friday, Spain faced Canada. The Spaniards controlled the match, but in the third quarter, the North American team overcame a 13-point deficit and led 55-53 in the final minutes. The Spanish turned around from there and won the game 60-55.
By the second game of the day, the fans had already created a full house atmosphere for the home team's performance. However, this did not help us at first.
There were seven Japanese goals and zero Hungarian goals on the scoreboard after two and a half minutes of play, so national team captain Norbert Szekely was forced to call his first over early. This led to the expected result: the Japanese stopped collecting points, but the Hungarian ones started, thanks to which the deficit was reduced to three points. But our game collapsed again. They sold a lot of balls, which the opponent took advantage of and they finally scored nine points in the first quarter (13-22).
The Olympic silver medalist team was not sharp enough either, thanks to their mistakes, after a long time, our team managed to get less than ten points again (22-30). The Japanese captain tried to make a difference in his team, but his time-out also worked in the Hungarians' favor: with a stunning start, Bernadette Hattar's team did not stop until the equaliser, after the long break. A new match can be started (32-32).
Both teams started the second half making 3-pointers, then Japan went through a slight ups and downs.
Taking advantage of this, the Hungarian team advanced for the first time in the match!
Moreover, by the end of the quarter, his advantage had increased to five (53-48). The last ten minutes did not start as we expected: the visitors scored seven points in a row. But the Hungarian team recovered from here as well, and 4 minutes and 17 seconds before the end – also for the first time in the match – were already six points away (69-63). But even this was not enough to achieve a certain victory, as Japan recovered again. It was important that the Asians got to the fifth field error first, capitalizing on it Rika Lilic Through the penalty kicks he scored in the last minute and a half, we just secured the victory (81-75).
The tournament ends on Sunday, and if Canada beats Japan we are out. If Japan beats Canada, the Spaniards can wait without betting, with a certain stake in their pockets, for the final against us, and our fate is also in our hands.
Women's Basketball, Olympic Qualifiers, Second Round:
Round 2
Spain-Canada 60-55
Hungary-Japan 81-75
Third round (played on Sunday):
Canada-Japan 15.00
Hungary-Spain 17.30
First round (played on Friday):
Japan-Spain 86-75
Hungary-Canada 55-67
(Cover photo: Hungarian National Basketball Players Association/Facebook page)
Follow Index on Facebook too!
