Saturday, December 20, 2008

PLKK 16/2008 - Polkowice 76, Rybnik 74



With regular league play not resuming until January 21st, Rybnik (10-6) wanted to go into the break with a win. With Polkowice (11-4) visiting, the game looked good for the Rybniki for three quarters, but Polkowice came back in the fourth quarter to steal a 76-74 win.

The loss knocks Rybnik to fifth place in the league. Polkowice moves up to fourth place, 1 1/2 games head of Rybnik.

Polkowice won the first quarter, but Rybnik came back on its home ground, leading 41-36 at halftime. Both teams fought evenly in the third, and the gap remained unchanged after the third quarter with Rybnik still up by five, 60-55. However, Polkowice held to Rybnik to just 14 points in the final quarter, and accoring to a (very) brief writeup, a decisive rebound by Polkowice with 15 seconds left sealed the game for the visitors.

Rybnik actually had better shooting than Polkowice - Rybnik shot slightly over 50 percent from the floor, whereas Polkowice scored 41 percent. Both teams rebounded evenly, but Polkowice won the battle of offensive rebounds 10-8...and who knows, maybe one of those offensive rebounds was the one that won the game. What killed Rybnik's shooting advantage were deficiencies in the other parts of the game. Rybnik turned the ball over 21 times and sent Polkowice to the free throw line thirty-one times. Granted, Polkowice only hit 15 of those 31 giveaways, but you rarely send your opponent to the line that much and walk away with a win.

For Rybnik, Natalia Trafimava scored 10 points and picked up seven rebounds, and was probably the player of the game for Rynik. Ketia Swanier scored 21 points and had six rebounds and five assists...but turned the ball over eight times. She had six turnovers in her last game, and I suspect that she's fallen victim to Europe's dribbling rules. Kasha Terry scored 14 points and eight rebounds. She shot 6-for-11 from the field, but unfortunately, shot 6-for-11 from the free throw line. LaTangela Atkinson only scored two points and had six rebounds, but six turnovers as well.

Jillian Robbins, who graduated from Tulsa in 2007, scored 19 points and had 13 rebounds for a double-double for Polkowice. Amisha Carter, who played briefly for both the Shock and the Liberty, scored 14 points and 12 rebounds for the second Polkowice double-double. Daria Mieloszyńska scored 17 points and seven rebounds as well.

Hopefully, either the Rybnik fans or the Polkowice fans will post some pictures soon.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Both teams rebounded evenly, but Polkowice won the battle of offensive rebounds 10-8...and who knows, maybe one of those offensive rebounds was the one that won the game."

True, true, true. Robbins made a crucial offensive rebound and easy points from the paint when there was only 20 seconds to go. She saved a win for CCC Polkowice, cause she did it just before the shot clock buzzer!

Anonymous said...

"Ketia Swanier (...) turned the ball over eight times. (...)I suspect that she's fallen victim to Europe's dribbling rules."

I don't think so... She didn't make technical mistakes during dribbling She made too many passes to nobody and broke down one or two fastbreaks. Swanier was great in scoring but a as a playmaker she could help her team much more.