– The Falcons had to wait weeks – even months – for their first victory, of all things against fourth-placed Phoenix Hagen at 80:71 (22:11, 18:20, 19:20, 21:20), luck returned to Nuremberg’s second division basketball team .
Ralph Junge has already experienced pretty much everything in basketball and because he has experienced pretty much everything, the managing director of the Nuremberg Falcons also knew what he didn’t have to do when he took over the team after seven winless games at the start of the new season, namely : Don’t turn everything upside down. But get into the heads of his basketball players.
After the eighth defeat, Junge’s main concern was to “do reconstruction work”, as he put it; to give his demoralized players self-confidence, to give them the belief that the ball can sometimes rush through the net instead of bouncing off the ring.
Sardaar Calhoun is out injured for a short time
In the home game against fourth-placed Phoenix Hagen on Saturday evening, the Falcons showed right from the start that they had obviously listened carefully. The hosts started the game with a 7-0 run and after the first quarter the lead was already in double digits: 22:11. While the guests seemed to underestimate the relegation candidate and especially took difficult throws from the (middle) distance, Nuremberg’s second division basketball players scored with a high percentage.
Without long-term injuries Evan Taylor and Matthew Meredith and short-term injury Sardaar Calhoun, the Falcons didn’t play flawlessly, but this time their heads didn’t immediately go down. Not even after the Hagen team came out of the locker room with more energy and aggression. The Falcons went into the break with a 40:31 lead, and until the final period they maintained their lead: 59:51.
Gabriel Kalscheur scored at a high percentage for the Nuremberg Falcons for a long time
At the beginning of the game, the team regularly looked good after 30 minutes, without anything worth counting at the end. Against Hagen, Ralph Junge’s team withstood the increasing pressure in the last quarter. Shortly before the end, the guests got within six points again, but this time the Falcons always had the right answer.
Gabriel Kalscheur scored 22 points and hit at a very high percentage for a long time, Julius Wolf first played good assists and then hit extremely difficult shots, Dan Monteroso repeatedly worked his way to the free throw line and Damian Forrest impressed as a defensive anchor. In the end, 1,742 euphoric fans actually celebrated the first win of the season.
Nuremberg: Kalscheur 22 points, Monteroso 16, Wolf 15, Forrest 11, Köpple 9, Feneberg 4, Saffer 3, Stoiber, Okafor, Eckert.
