The Cup is the tournament of surprises par excellence, in which the small fish can devour the big one on a good day. It is passion, nerve, tension, uncertainty. Anything can happen after a match… but what is happening in Zaragoza in 2023 goes beyond anything unpredictable. If on Friday Lointek Gernika left the 2021 champion in the quarterfinals, a sore Spar Girona (six and a half casualties: Murphy played with a broken finger), This Saturday Casademont Zaragoza reached heaven by eliminating Valencia Basket in the semifinals (59-74)a whole Euroleague team, finalist in the Cup in 2021 and in the League the last two seasons.
A gigantic feat for a newborn club, which emerged in 2020 under the auspices of the ACB team due to the risk of disappearance of women’s basketball in Aragon due to the Mann-Filter problems. And in these only three years, a qualification for the playoff for the title, European participation in the Eurocup and two passes to a Queen’s Cup in which In this edition, they will play the final against Perfumerías Avenida or Lointek Gernika with an entire Príncipe Felipe pavilionhis house, supporting until exhaustion.
As happened against Valencia, where more than 8,537 spectators (record for a match in the KO tournament) enjoyed an incredible match, historic for the Zaragozans, in which Valencia had it twice won: at the beginning, when the taronjas reached +14 on the score (23-9) and at the beginning of the last quarter (58-53). All this by the guide of a true madness of a player as she is Rachel Carrera. The center finished with 24 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals for a PIR of 36! Only eight players before her had reached that figure.
But in both moments, Casademont knew how to react. He used a very good defense in the second quarter to close the gap until the break with a tie at 48. The triple weighed down his rival (3 of 22) and Zaragoza let him hang himself from there. The growth spurt of Julián Burgos at dawn of the last period with Ouviña enraged He gave a +5 that seemed like a death sentence for Carlos Cantero’s. But Vega Gimeno appeared. And everything exploded. The Valencian from Zaragoza, a 3×3 specialist, reached 18 points, with a 6 of 8 from the triple. Three of them in line for the lethal takeoff of theirs: partial 0-15 to close the duel, from 59-59 to 59-74 in four minutes. All Zaragoza dreams of the Cup.
