Basketball club «Astana» continued a series of friendly matches at training camps in Lithuania. The Lithuanian «Labas GAZ» from the city of Prienai became the second rival of our team.
«Labas GAZ got its current name only this year with the arrival of a new sponsor. The Prinai club and its history, working with various sponsors, quite often changed its name. At one time it bore the names “Rudupis”, “ToniBet”, “Vytautas”, “Skykop” and “CBet”, but it was always associated with the hometown and was alternatively called BC “Prienai”. The team is a permanent member of the main Lithuanian basketball league. In addition, the Prinai team played in the Baltic League, which they won in the 2016/2017 season, also played in the Euro Cups and the European Champions League. Last season, the team from the city of Prienai entered quarterfinal in the Lithuanian Cup and finished fifth in the Lithuanian league. Teams from Kazakhstan and Lithuania did not meet in official tournaments, but they met on the court five times in friendly matches. Like «Vytautas», the Lithuanian team met with Astana 2 times — in 2016 and 2017, in 2018 the team was called Skykop» and played twice with Astana, in 2019 there was one game, and then the Lithuanians were called «SeBET». “Astana” won three out of five games.
The game started at a mellow pace. In the first five minutes, our team scored 9 points, and the rivals did 4. “Astana” continued to act quite confidently in the first quarter and, as a result, won it with a good lead — 9:17. The start of the second period was extremely unfortunate for the Kazakh team. In five minutes of the period, our guys were able to update their score by just one point, while the «Labas GAZ» team players spent these five minutes extremely productively — during this time they scored more than in the entire first quarter — 14 points and pulled away from the rivals. But before the big break, Darko Russo's players were able to regain balance and the first half ended in a draw — 31:31. After fifteen minutes of rest, the teams again lost their effectiveness — in five minutes the Lithuanians scored 3 points, and the Kazakhs 7. Until the end of the third ten minutes, the capital players scored 8 more points, and Labas GAZ added only 5. As a result, before the final quarter our the team was 7 points ahead — 39:46. At the start of the fourth period, our guys were not very successful in attacking, gaining only 5 points in five minutes, but their opponents were less successful, earning only 3 points. As a result, “Astana” won 9 points five minutes before the end of the match. However, the Lithuanians were clearly not going to give up and very much increased the pace in the last five minutes, gaining 20 points in the last five minutes, but “Astana” was able to score 11. As a result, the game ended in a draw — 62:62.
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Of course it's a shame that “Astana” missed the victory in this match, ending up in a draw. But let's not forget that this is a friendly match and both teams tried to play with their new teams and work out various combinations. As part of “Astana” the most efficient was Jaylen Burford — 16 points and 4 rebounds, and the most effective was Skylar Spencer — 6 points and 9 rebounds. Nikolay Bazhin earned 9 points and 3 rebounds. Anthony Hickey and Mark Tikhonenko scored 8 points each, and if Anthony scored 3 more rebounds and 7 assists, then Mark has 2 assists and 7 rebounds.
The statistical report of the match is available
here.
Schedule and results of pre-season friendly matches of PBC »Astana»:
- September 9 — «Juventus», Utena — 58:91
- September 11 — «Labas GAS», Prienai — 62:62
- September 17 — «CBet», Jonava
- September 18 — «VEF», Riga
Also, on September 13 and 14, our guys will take part in the pre-season tournament for the Raimundo Sarguno Cup in the city of Panevezys. On the first day in the semifinals they will play with the «Ogre» team, and in the match for the main trophy or third place they will be opposed either by the tournament hosts «Lietkabelis» or the Estonian team «Parnu».
