The new season of Kazakhstan Championship began for the Presidential basketball club «Astana» in Aktau with a victory over the local «Caspiy».
A review of the first match of the National League should be started by mentioning the fact that “Astana”, like all other teams participating in the tournament, according to the provisions of the Regulation, can only register two foreign players from the EEU countries and two imports from other countries have a right to play in the games. Since all our foreign players are not from EEU countries, today the capital team could roster only two imports, they were newcomers: Jeremiah Hill and Dushan Ristic.
Despite the fact that according to the forecasts, “Astana” came to Aktau as a favorite, it was the hosts who opened the score and were leading in the first minutes of the game. But the wards of Emil Raikovich quickly took in the situation, made up for lost time and pulled away. After the first ten minutes, the advantage of “Astana” was 10 points. In the second period, the difference of 10 points lasted about 5 minutes, but then the Caspians found strength and began to confidently reduce their backlog. As a result, “Caspiy” created the intrigue, leaving for a long break with only 2 points behind — 35:37.
Aktau basketball players reduced their gap to a minimum, losing only 1 point at the start of the third period, but then “Astana” finally found its game and began to gradually dominate the game. Toward the middle of the third quarter, our team had already won 7 points, and by its completion, the advantage doubled to 14 points. In the final period, the capital team increased the pace of the game even more, for which «Caspiy» could not keep up. As a result, over the last 10 minutes of playing time, the difference in the score more than doubled, and after the final buzzer, «Astana» celebrated the first victory in the National League season — 54:90 (13:23, 22:14, 11:23, 8: 30).
In the first half of the match, “Caspiy” showed its strength and imposed a fight on our team, but in the second half, “Astana” completely seized control of the game and did not miss the chance to win a major victory. With this match, “Astana” started its participation in the National League and the beginning was very convincing. Plus, “Astana” immediately headed the standings, because despite having less points than their rivals, they have one-hundred percent effectiveness.
The most effective players: The newly-made captain of the “yellow-turquoise” Rustam Murzagaliev demonstrated an excellent game (17 points, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 2 block shots), along with him the rookie of the team Dushan Ristic (17 points, 10 rebounds and 2 steals) distinguished himself. The leaders of the Caspian’s resistance are Russian Denis Orlenko (10 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 block shots) and Valeriy Simonov (15 points, 3 rebounds and 2 steals).
Next match: Tomorrow, on October 16, our guys will again meet with «Caspiy» on the court in the second match of the series, after which they will play with «Khimki», Moscow Region, as part of the VTB United League, which will be held on Sunday, October 20.
Detailed information about the tournament, standings, the schedule and match results are published in the Tournaments section.
 «Samruk-Kazyna» National Welfare Fund |
 Uniform operator «Tourism Industry and Sports Support Fund» |
