Basketball club «Astana» continues to dominate the National League! The away series of the capital team in Kostanay began with a confident victory over the local «Tobol». In the first game, Emil Rajkovic released imports Jeremiah Hill and Martins Meyers.
The score was opened by our rivals, but already in the next attack, Jeremiah Hill scored the first points for “Astana”, having realized an accurate three-pointer. Then, for three minutes, there was a stubborn struggle on the court, and during this time the teams swapped leadership several times. In the middle of the first period, our guys made the first breakthrough and exactly at the equator of the quarter, today's birthday boy Maxim Marchuk has scored reaching a two-digit advantage of the capital's team. However, the hosts were not disoriented, they were able to pull together and quickly reduced the gap from ten to three points. In general, the second half of the first period became a mirror image of the first, and at the very end of the ten-minute period, the Kostanay team evened the score — 21:21. At the start of the second quarter, Rustam Murzagaliyev brought “Astana” ahead and our team got a little ahead, but by the middle of the period, the hosts again parried the attack and evened the score. Although “Tobol” did not come out ahead in the second game segment. Maxim Marchuk again created the next gap, but this lead was very fragile until the end of the first half of the match. The maximum gap reached by “Astana” in this quarter was only six points. At the last minute of the first half of the game, Nikolay Bazhin established this difference in the score, after an accurate throw with a foul and a free throw. The teams left for the long break when the score was 38:42 in favour of Emil Rajkovic's charges.
In the third quarter, “Tobol” actively continued to impose the struggle, but the initiative was on the side of our team. In the first half of the period, only Nikolay Bazhin and Martins Meyers scored points in «Astana», and their efforts did not bring a major lead over their rivals. The difference between the teams was around 4 — 8 points. The situation began to change in the middle of the period when Maxim Marchuk again scored from a long distance, and after his attack, Dmitry Gavrilov, with his persistence in paint, brought Astana's advantage to a double-digit figure. “Tobol” made attempts to return to the game, but by the end of the third period, they lagged behind by 10 points — 56:66. Such a difference before the final game segment was not fatal for the hosts, because ten points can be won back rather quickly. However, our team was not going to give the rivals an opportunity to change the situation in their favour and drag them into a difficult ending. “Tobol” five minutes before the end of the match was losing only 7 points and they still had the chance to pull out this match. But our team made another good spurt in three minutes — 0:12, bringing their lead close to twenty points a couple of minutes before the final buzzer. During this time Murzagaliev, Meyers, Bazhin and Hill all scored the points. The outcome of the game, in fact, had already been decided and Emil Rajkovic's team spent the remaining time of the match mildly, winning it with a score of 72:88.
Most productive:
- “Tobol” — Anton Bykov made another double-double — 22 points and 12 rebounds while recording 5 more assists, 3 steals and 2 block shots. Konstantin Dvirniy scored 21 points and 5 rebounds.
- «Astana» — the most effective in our team was Maxim Marchuk, who celebrated his birthday with 18 points, 3 rebounds and 9 assists. Nikolay Bazhin scored the most points for our team — 19 points. Jeremiah Hill has a double-double with 11 points and 12 assists. Martins Meyers earned 14 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
Consequences: “Astana” is only strengthening its position on the first line of the National League standings, while “Tobol” is slightly behind the top four.
Next match: The second game of the series with “Tobol” will take place tomorrow, January 18, also in Kostanay on the court of the sports and entertainment complex “Kostanay”. The match starts at 18:00 Nur-Sultan time. The online broadcast of the game will be available on the home page of our website and on our
YouTube channel.
Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the
Tournaments section.
