Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Euroleague 8th Finals 1/2008 - Ros Casares 98, Kosice 53




Erika de Souza, just doing her thing.

Ros Casares looks like a team that could hold its own against any WNBA team. El Ros has Amaya Valdemoro, Erika de Souza, Delisha Milton-Jones...and has now added Candace Wiggins to its roster. With the eighth-finals opening in Valencia, Ros Casares had no trouble with their Slovak visitors, beating them 98-53 to take the first game of a best-of-three series in front of an announced home crowd of 1300.

The boxscore and gallery are here.

Ros Casares took a 19-10 lead to start off the game, but it was the second quarter that became a rout. Kosice was held to just nine points and Ros Casares led 44-19 at halftime. The home team won each of the following quarters by ten points, and Kosike was never really in the game.

Ros Casares would hit 57 percent of their shots, compared to just 32 percent for Kosike. Kosike also turned the ball over a nightmarish thirty times and sent Ros Casares to the free throw line 21 times. It was a mess of a game for the visitors.

Four players scored in do9uble figures for the visitors. Candace Wiggins made her Euroleague debut with a 23 point game. Erika De Souza added 17 points and six rebounds in just 20 minutes of play. Amaya Valdemoro scored 16 points, and Delisha Milton-Jones added 18 points and five rebounds.

Despite having a couple of WNBA players of their own, it would be Liren Cohen who would lead Kosice with 15 points, the only player to score in double digits. Cathrine Kraayeveld of the New York Liberty scored eight points and six rebounds for Kosice and Sidney Spencer of the Los Angeles Sparks added seven points and seven rebounds in the losing effort.

Game Two of the eight-finals takes place on Friday at Kosike. Ros Casares would close the series and move on to the Euroleague quarter-finals with a win.

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