Valencia Basket does not stop growing in women’s basketball. The taronjas will fight this Saturday with the winner of the Casademont Zaragoza-Kutxabank Araski for a place in the final of the Copa de la Reinawhich would be his second opportunity to win this trophy, one of the greats of the season, in a brief, but great story that has been forged with matches like the one he experienced this Thursday in the quarterfinals against him Movistar Students (69-56).
A complex, difficult duel, fought face to face until the break and that was not decided until the middle of the last quarter when the potential Valencian, his depth of bench, took ahead a seasoned Movistar Estudiantes, who was enjoying her fourth Cup of all time, the third in a row within the splendid cycle that the collegiate women’s section is experiencing. And that he came to Prince Felipa of Zaragoza to “enjoy, but also to compete and try to seek victories” as Melisa Gretter, the great leader from Ramire, assured.
SUMMARY
56 – Movistar Students (18+17+10+11): Gretter (2), Mollenhauer (2), Becky Massey (8), Erauncetamurgil (-), Fingall (13) -starting five- Méndez (9), Espin (-), De Mier (-), Conde (2), Saravia (-) and Billie Massey (20).
referees: Jacobo Rial, Sandra Sánchez and Daniel Checa. No excluded.
incidents: first match of the quarterfinals of the Copa de la Reina played in the Príncipe Felipe pavilion in Zaragoza before some 4,500 spectators.
And Argentina did not fall short in that statement. Estu stood up to an entire Euroleague team which was surprisingly seen at halftime below the score (32-35). The Madrid collective game, fast in circulation and destructive on the inside thanks to the superb Billie Massey (20 points), put Valencia in trouble, which resisted quality sparks. From Alba Torrens and Queralt Casas, who turned the score around in the second half, from Leti Romero, from Raquel Carrera… but, above all, from Cristina Ouvina.
The woman from Zaragoza, at home, blew up a Movistar short of troops, without air for the last blows. That he suffered without the points from Gretter and Erauncetamurgil, and the accumulation of fouls from Fingal and from Zeta. Always active, Ouviña led the 14-2 run in the first five minutes of the last quarter that took the score from an uncertain 50-45 to an almost convicting 64-47. He made 6 (two 3-pointers) of his 14 points in that span. Romero, with a 2+1, and Gulich, from the perimeter, accompanied the Spanish international in this orange ride towards the semifinals.
Estudiantes tried to get up from the blow with Laura Méndez at the controls (66-56). However, the distance was considerable and the time too short for David Gallego’s men to be able to give the bell in this first meeting of quarters. Valencia is in the semifinals, while the schoolgirls leave with their heads held high.