France Gets Win Over Greece

France got their European campaign off to a perfect start with a laborious win against Greece (58-50). In a match that had Audrey Sauret-Gillespie failing to score and Edwige Lawson-Wade picking up foul after foul, you would have expected the opponents to have taken full advantage. Yet also Greece managed to blend high quality technical moves with some very poor finishing.

After an entertaining and very promising  first quarter, won by a single point by France, the game became stale. And the match officials’ questionable calls at times did not help the flow of the game either. With France’s solid defence and Lawson’s court-cleverness, France went into overdrive and were leading comfortably at the interval (27-19).

France’s inability to kill the game off for good in the 3rd period due to their unforced errors shooting the ball was the only reason their opponents remained in contact. Greece almost profited in the final period from France’s generosity when Evanthia Maltsi scored 9 consecutive points to make it a 5-point game (50-45). Then Sandrine Gruda came to the rescue with 5 points as France put a 7 :2 run to extend their advantage to 10 points in the closing stage of the match to make the game safe.

Dimitra Kalentzou top-scored with 16 points for the losers. Sandrine Gruda top-scored with 14 points for France but it was Sandrine Le Dréan who stole the show with her all-round performance to finish up with 9 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists. France dominated Greece throughout the game with the largest lead of the game with 36-23 and finished 58-50.

"We tried to control the offensive rebounding of France and we didn't do a bad job but because of the pressure , we turned the ball over 24 times and France scored 10 easy points on the fast break", Greek's Coach Konstantino. Greece is looking toward the future as they face Italy tomorrow at 13:30 local time.

Top Scorers: Sandrine Gruda (14) ,Dimitra Kalentzou (16)