Best throwers among themselves: Göttingen’s Sylwia Bujniak (right) against Rhineland’s Taylor Wurtz.
© Hubert Jelinek / gsd
Was that the decisive defeat in the direction of relegation to the 2nd league? It almost seems so, because after the 64:72 defeat at the leaders Rheinland Lions in Bergisch-Gladbach, the chances of BG 74 Göttingen to stay up in the women’s basketball league (DBBL) have fallen even further.
Göttingen – “The girls are pretty beat up,” said Veilchen Ladies managing director Richard Crowder after the 16th bankruptcy in the 21st first division game in the Herkenrath school center. “It’s a shame, there was more possible,” he was right to claim, because the medical instinct violets really showed a very decent performance with their mini-squad of only seven players. The injured Dragana Domuzin was number 8 on the bench, because otherwise there would have been a penalty for the BG 74 – eight players must be on the game report.
Thanks to five three-pointers (two each from Tudor, Bujniak and Brabencova) in the first quarter, coach Goran Lojo’s team led 24:15 and added two more through Jenny Crowder in the second period. So many threesomes in one quarter? That was one of the weaknesses of the Violet Ladies – just like the bad free-throw records of the players.
But the BGs threw themselves into the game in order to realize a possible surprise success with the leaders of the table. But it shouldn’t be enough!
At 55:52, captain Crowder & Co led for the last time, from the 32nd minute the Lojo team had less and less trouble – also a question of strength, since the BG 74 actually played with only six players, because Vida’s signing was not the first time that he didn’t have any points at.
“That was one of our best performances, small things made the difference,” Richard Crowder was right afterwards. But in the end the breath was gone and the heads down before the three-hour night drive back.
How the relegation is to be realized now is a mystery. Catching up three wins in five games against Halle seems unlikely. The direct comparison against Halle (home 74:58, away 63:59 aet) probably doesn’t help either. Striking: The BG women are the series losers of the DBBL: they lost three times five times in a row.
The BG 74 home game against tail light Heidelberg on Sunday (4 p.m.) could bring a (preliminary) decision. If the Veilchen Ladies lose this game as well, the fall into the 2nd league north is as good as sealed. Because Halle loses all other games is rather unrealistic. And even if the Lojo team wins, relegation will probably only be postponed. What grim prospects after what Richard Crowder called “plague season”!
Remaining program: BG 74: Heidelberg (H); Osnabrueck (A); Dusseldorf (A); moated castle (H); Press (H).
Remaining program Halle: Freiburg (H); Saarlouis (H); moated castle (A); pressing (A); Osnabrueck (H).
(Helmut Anschütz /gsd)
