Div B: Italy goes unbeaten into the semi-final

Italy booked their spot in the semi-final of the Termosteps U16 European Championship Women beating Croatia 58-50 in group E.

Croatia got off to their traditional good start and soon had the first five points on the board and looked to have everything under control leading (2-7) in the opening minutes.

The Italian coach, Marco Rota, sounded the revolt and Italy woke up and went on the attack running at their opponents with pace and hit 9 unanswered points with Giulia Pasqualin and Irene Primossi in the thick of the action to go in front (11-7). A lead Italy was not to relinquish for the rest of the match. In an entertaining first period both sides traded baskets constantly for the rest of the period as they paid little attention to defence and took - what appeared to be - calculated risks that paid dividend.

The first period came to a comical conclusion with five seconds on the clock: First Ivana Zubak (Croatia) hit a jump-shot that bounced 3 times of the top of the rim before dropping in. There was still time for Alice Richer (Italy) to pick up the offensive rebound from Primossi’s 3-point effort and took 2 attempts before making the basket on the buzzer.

After the excitement of the first period, the second period was dull as Italy took hold of the match with some clinical finishing to open the first significant lead of the match (36-24). Pasqualin hit 10 points to take her total to 17 points as Italy went into the break leading by 12 (40-29). And after the game she commented that: “In the beginning of today’s match Croatia was tough in defence and obviously they could score some easy baskets. We started to play a little harder, put pressure on defence and then came back.”

The third period took off as the second ended with Italy extending their advantage by the end of the third period to (54-39) despite loosing Irene Primossi, who fell awkwardly on her ankle.

During the last period Marco Rota, the Italian head coach, rotated his bench and Croatia reduced their deficit to 8 points at the end of the game (58-50). Giulia Pasqualin hit a game-high of 17 points, but did not score in the second half. She concluded: “That happens,” and laughed. Federica Tognalini finished with a game-high of 10 rebounds and contributed 9 points and said after the game that it “was played at a high level because both teams’ objectives were the same: the semi-final. So both teams fought very hard to take control of the game. And Croatia gave us a hard game today.”

Marco Rota, the Italian head coach made the following comments after the game: “Now we are ready. We are in the semi-final on Saturday with the second of the other group. We achieved our first goal now. So can think about tomorrow’s game more relaxed and with less pressure which is good because we have two injured players: Alessandra Tava (hurt on Tuesday) and Irene Pieropan (hurt today) who should be back by Saturday, whose presence are important for the semi-final. We are happy but not satisfied with the performance today.” 

Boxscore