The National League starts for Astana with a home two-game series against Aktau Caspiy. Mikhail Karpenko returned to the role of the head coach of the opposing team this season. The team from Aktau is quite young but has been strengthened with experienced Kazakhstani players and foreign newcomers. In the first match of the series, among foreign players, Martins Meyers and Jeremiah Hill entered the court.
Caspiy practically from the beginning of the game had to catch up. Meyers, Hill, Shcherbak and Litvinenko, with their accurate throws, quickly brought the capital team a double-digit advantage. Also in the first quarter, Ruslan Aitkali and Anton Ponomarev distinguished themselves with the scored points. Caspiy managed to score 15 points for the first game segment, while our team recorded almost twice as many points — 28, and began a confident lead to win this game. The second quarter was not as successful for Astana in comparison with the first one, but Emil Rajkovic's players continued to keep the situation under control. Caspiy brought their backlog to less than 10 points, but our team stopped all the attempts of the opponents and kept its advantage in the comfort range. The second quarter ended with an equal score, 13 points in favour of Astana remained until the big break — 50:37.
After the break, our team continued their confident play. The Aktau team made attempts to turn the tide of the match in the third quarter, but all their attacks were immediately stopped by our guys. And although the capital team also did not make decisive moves to pull forward, they gradually increased their lead. So, one and a half minutes before the end of the third quarter, Rustam Murzagaliev, with an accurate three-pointer, brought the capital gap to twenty points. After thirty minutes of playing time, Astana confidently led by all the same 20 points and was not going to give them the slightest chance to catch up. The last 10 minutes of the match were spent in an equal competition and Caspiy was unable to come up with anything that could threaten the victory of our team today. As a result, Astana won a landslide victory, winning the first match of the season in the National League with a score of 87:66.
Most productive:
- «Astana» — team captain Rustam Murzagaliyev became the most productive and efficient in our team in this match, gaining 20 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. Ruslan Aitkali also played an excellent match — 13 points and 3 rebounds, as well as Vadim Shcherbak — 12 points and 3 rebounds. On account of Martins Meyers, for whom this was his debut in the National League — 9 points and 3 rebounds.
- «Caspiy» — American Colin Doherty, also a debut in the National League gained 25 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists. Also, it is worth noting another debut in the National League Eugene Artison — 14 points and 7 rebounds.
Consequences: Astana starts in the National League with a victory and begins its journey for another victory in the championship
The next match: the second game of the series with Caspiy will take place tomorrow, October 27, also on the court of the “Saryarka” Cycling Track. The meeting starts at 19:30 Astana time.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
