The young basketball hopefuls Sluneta and Slavoje Litoměřice have valuable experience behind them. At the weekend National Festival of the U12 category, which was hosted by Ústí nad Labem, they competed against the best teams from the republic.
National festival U12, Sluneta Ústí – Olomouc, group for 9th – 12th place
| Video: Diary/Daniel Brzák
However, both teams lost their matches in the basic groups. Sluneta lost to Sokol Pražský 28:65 and Nymburk 42:72, while Litoměříčtí were not enough against Dubeč (49:60) and Tygry Brno (45:72).
After falling into the group for 9th – 12th place, they were therefore expected to face each other, which turned out better for home team Ústí (61:48). In the end, it narrowly beat Olomouc (56:53) and Písek (75:37) and took ninth place. Litoměřice didn’t do so well and due to tight rotation, they lost all three matches (56:63 Písek, 35:91 Olomouc) and finished twelfth.
“Finally, the boys played properly. In the previous three matches, one top five always played, the other didn’t, that’s why it was so up and down. This time, everyone really wanted it, and that’s why we beat the team we lost to by 35 points last year in the national championship. ” said Ústí nad Labem coach Miroslav Bár after the win against Olomouc. “Unfortunately, we had probably the most difficult group, because Nymburk and Sokol Pražský are in the semi-finals, but it’s definitely great that the boys play such matches, it’s experience,” he added.
Source: Diary/Daniel Brzák
“Písek is an opponent who is qualitatively very similar to us. From the beginning of the match, we struggled a bit with fouls, which was a problem for us due to the narrow rotation of players. Four minutes before the end, the opponent bounced back a bit and it looked like it was decided, but I would like to praise the boys for not putting down their weapons and fighting until the end. They showed a lot of nice individual situations and proved that they are willing to fight even when we are down and it looked like we had no chance to get back into the match,” he said about the concurrently played duel with Písek, Litoměřice coach Jan Dvořáček.
In the end, Havířov’s players won the festival, beating Sokol Pražský 75:71 in the final, they finished third after a narrow 63:61 win against Tygry Brno BA Nymburk.
