Malta's Anna Fenech Pace (centre) drives towards the Cyprus paint. Photo: FIBA
Second consecutive win for Gebbia’s clan
MALTA 58
CYPRUS 52
(11-7, 20-14, 12-22, 15-9)
Malta won their second successive game at this year’s FIBA women’s Under-18 European Championships in Albania on Thursday, this time beating Cyprus 58-52.
It was yet another show of force for Giovanni Gebbia’s clan as they finished top of Group A and head to the semi-finals with the runner-up of Group B on Saturday.
Malta’s Danika Galea was once more the leading scorer of the game with 24 points on Thursday. She added 22 rebounds to finish with her second double-double in a row. Andie Saliba rounded the double-digits with 12 points and five assists, while Anna Fenech Pace was a major contributor on the boards with 13 rebounds.
At the other end, Evdokia Patsalidou led Cyprus’ points with 18. Christina Nikolakopoulou followed with 10 points.
Defence was Malta’s trump card on the day as they dominated the game’s rebounds while getting 13 steals. On offence, Malta was the better side from the freethrow line to compensate for a low three-point percentage.
Despite Malta having won the tip-off, Cyprus went ahead first through an Evdokia Patsalidou layup. This became a 6-0 run before Fenech Pace hit a shot from close range. Saliba and Fenech Pace both scored in between a Cypriot freethrow to bring it to just a point before Galea hit both shots from the line to give Malta their first lead.
The second quarter was similar, with Malta keeping the Cypriots constrained to single digits until the fourth minute of the rubber. While the latter overcome this, Malta continued to push and ended the first half up by 10 points.
The third quarter was Cyprus’ best run throughout the game, and slowly reduced the margin and eventually levelled proceedings by the buzzer.
But Malta was back on track in the fourth to open a seven-point gap by half of the quarter. Patsalidou and Nikolakopoulou both hit from three to level for Cyprus again. However, one last push from the Malta players secured the win at the end.
MALTA
S. Sciberras 2, L. Fenech Pace 5, A. Fenech Pace 4, M. Fenech 5, A. Saliba 12, S. Fenech Pace 6, D. Galea 24.
CYPRUS
G. Michael 7, C. Nikolakopoulou 10, L. Eleftheriou 3, V. Pousiapake, M. Christou 2, M. Savva 5, A. Tryfonos 3, G. Siampoulli 3, A. Petrou 1, E. Patsalidou 18.
