Aggressive Win For France Over Belarus

France 72 - Belarus 60 

The start was fast and furious with Anastasiya Veremeenko from Belarus contesting the offensive boards as she scored 8 of her teams 12 points while they held a little advantage (12-9) after 6 minutes of play.

Emilie Gomis once again was the catalyst as France went on a 6:0 run to edge in front (15:14) with a little more than 2 minutes left in the first quarter. The Belarus head coach, Anatoiki Buyalski, called a time-out and changed his team tactics keeping France scoreless for the remaining of the period while his team Belarus regained the lead (18-15).

A different France in the second period, more aggressive in all sectors of the game, with Sandra Dijon taking control of the defensive boards and the guards using their pace to create space, they edged in front (28-23). Then Buyalski called a time-out but this time France remained focused: Sandrine Gruda ran back to retrieve a wayward pass by Dijon and managed to get it to Edwige Lawson-Wade who hit a 3 with the 24-second clock winding down. Immediately afterwards Clémence Beikes concluded another quick French move to give France the first significant advantage of the game (33-23). Despite France’s dominance Jacques Commères was furious with his players for allowing Belarus to - finally - score a couple of 3-pointers. Despite his obvious annoyance Emmeline Ndongue concluded the last play just before the interval to give France an 8-point cushion.

During the third period Belarus, slightly more aggressive and adventurous, made the better start and scored the first 4 points. Both teams covered the perimeter making it difficult to work openings from the outside so they had to apply a little patience. In this exercise Belarus proved to be better than France  and by the end of this quarter France’s lead was reduced to 4 points.

Another system was adopted by France at the top of the final period with Gomis and Dijon scoring from the field while Gruda extended their lead to 11 points from the free-throw line. Belarus reverted back to their 3-point-play system but only hit their 3rd of the night. France continued to hold the advantage and Dumerc decided to give a little demonstration of running circles round the defence and dish out an assist right under the basket for Dijon to score her 10th point of the night (64-52).

Belarus, struggling to get any offensive game going, did not trouble France any more who recorded victory number 3 for this tournament.

Gruda finished with a game-high of 17 points followed by Ndongue with 12 and Dijon with 10 points. The team’s collective game concluded with 16 assists with Lawson-Wade 5 and Audrey Sauret-Gillespie 3 of them. For Belarus the top-scorer with points was Veremeenko finishing with 15 points.

Post Game Interview with Sandra Dijon