Third Quarter Run Kills The Game For Serbia

Serbia 78 – Bulgaria 61

Serbia took a first lead, 13-6 with 3:24 to the end of the first after a Sara Krnjic’s basket. Two minutes after that Stanislava Stankova cut the drought and made it 13-8 with 1:30 remaining. The Bulgarian guard made it 15-10 and sparked an 8-0 run that abridged the end of the first and the first 1:37 of the second, closing an 8-0 run and putting Bulgaria in front 16-15.

From that moment on both teams traded baskets and leads. There were five lead changes during the quarter until. With 2:32 remaining  Sara Krnjic sparked a 12-2 run for Serbia that lead the Serbs ahead 36-28 at the break. Antoniya Zagorova scored the two Bulgarian points and adding Sara Krnjic four more for Serbia and summed up 14 pts and 10 rebounds at the break.

Bulgaria made an 8-0 run in the first minutes of the third to put Bulgaria in front 40-38 ahead and forced the timeout from Zoran Kovacic after 3:50. Serbia answered with another 8-0 run that returned them the double digit margin, returning to the trading and reaching the end of the third  57-46 up after a three pointer form Latinka Dusanic in the last seconds.

In the last quarter Bulgaria kept on trying to make a Comeback and after the first three minutes they made  a 6-0 run to close the gap to 62-54 after a layup from Stanislava Stankova, who tried to push her team and tried to spread her passion to her teammates, but one more time, her team had no choice. After a brief Trading that made it 64-56 after a basket from Violina Kocheva with 4:30, remaining. Bulgaria shouldn’t score in almost three minutes and Serbia recovered the double digit margin and they won’t get back to singles again, reaching a maximum lead during the quarter, 73-56, and finishing with a 78-61 victory.

For Serbia Sara Krnjic had 24 pts and 16 boards and Latinka Dusanic added 14, while in Bulgaria Stanislava Stankova scored 18 pts and handed 4 assists, and Stefka Nikolova had 11 points and handed out six assists.