Lithuania's Comeback Overpowered France

France 65 Luthuania 67

France lost a 14-point lead in the last 13 minutes of the match and to make matters worse they only managed only 2-of-8 from the foul line in the final period. Last but not least France allowed Egle Sulciute two scores from the land of many in the last 60 seconds to hand the victory to Lithuania.

At the beginning of the encounter Edwige Lawson-Wade picked up an offensive rebound and went coast to coast to finish with a jump shot to open the scoring. The fight in the middle by the big players resulted in Sandra Dijon picking up two fouls after only 2:40 of play. Emmeline Ndongue came on for her and was soon in action as she completed a lay-up of a Lawson-Wade assist in a 6:0 sequence that appeared to put France in command (12-5). Lithuania scored again from the free-throw line before finally hitting a field goal (7:30 into the game) by Iveta Marcauskaite. France's malediction from beyond the arc continued and allowed Lithuania the opportunity to come back by the end of the opening quarter and trail only by a single point (14-13).

An 11: 0 spread over two periods put Lithuania in the driving seat (20-14): Agne Ciudariene put Lithuania in front after a nice turn-around jump shot followed by a Lina Brazdeikyte lay-up and completed by a trey from Iveta Marcauskaite. France, unable to pick off second- chance rebounds finally stopped the leakage with a Sandra Le Drean jump shot. Then she was again on hand to complete an 8:0 run with a steal to restore the lead (22-20). Emmeline Ndongue, just like Sandra Dijon before her, picked up a second personal foul, giving the chance for Isabelle Yacoubou to come into the game.Youthful exuberance or not, she made an immediate impact inspirering Sandrine Gruda who performed some of her best defensive actions as both sides went end to end. The pace of the game accelerated which suited Lawson-Wade - as she inspired her team-mates with some slick runs and passes - to conclude the period with a 3-point-buzzer shot (33-27) as part of a 7:0 run by France.

Yacoubou, decisive on the defensive boards, fed the ball out to Lawson-Wade who in turn delivered a nice pass for Gruda to finish up and conclude the 9:0 sequence. Lithuania, always dangerous in open play, did not drop their heads but had problems containing Yacoubou while France reached the magical 10-point lead (44-34). Some sloppy play from France resulted in two turnovers and Lithuania was back in the game. Clemence Beikes hit a trey from a pass from Lawson-Wade to maintain France's advantage. Later on Sandra Le Drean finished off another French fast-break move orchestrated by Celine Dumerc (51-40). France extended their advantage to a maximum 14 points. As so often France went off the rails and Lithuania hit 9 consecutive points to cut their deficit to 5 points. Just at the end of the third period France went into the last period with a 7-point lead due to a mix-up in the Lithuanian defence that allowed Sandra Dijon to pick the ball out of the hands of Egle Sulciute right under the basket and score.

The final quarter belonged to the team of Algirdas Paulauskas as his team did not give up whereas France's poor shooting from the charity stripe during the stanza was to prove costly as the match came to its conclusion with Egle Sulciute playing a big part. She was allowed room in the French paint to make it a 2-point game in favour of France (60-58). Gintare Petronyte took a risk of tugging Gruda's shirt in the paint. Although Gruda made the shot, the official had already blown for an unsportsmanlike foul and disallowed the basket. Gruda only made one the free-throws.

The final act was a match-up between Lawson-Wade who hit back to back 2-point jumpers while Egle Sulciute hit back to back treys. And with her second one she gave Lithuania the lead (66-65) with 12.67 seconds remaining. France had the chance to win the match but messed up their last attack and with that the game was gone. Sandra Valuzytze hit one of her free-throws leaving France 1.96 seconds left to find a solution.
What was more remarkable in Lithuania's last minute hold-up was that both Rima Valentiene and Marcauskaite had already fouled out.