GBL final play-off goes to third match

Gibraltar Basketball League holders Europa Valmar and Bavaria Blue Stars were level at 1-1 in the best-of-three Final Play-Off and face each other in the third and decisive match on Wednesday (tip-off 8:15 pm). The Season’s Youth Awards will be presented at half-time.
BBS enjoyed a whirlwind first-half in Match 1, racing to a 47-28 lead. EV reduced the difference in the second-half, edging the quarters 18-14 and 27-25, but the final outcome was never in doubt. The final score was 86-73, with Tomas Yome 23, Alex Garcia 21, Sergio Malla 19, Alvaro Guzman 11 top scorers for the winners and Mo El Yettefti 23, Andrew Yeats 13, Javi Guerra 11 and Pablo Postigo 10 best for the losers.
The second match was the direct opposite. Here, EV raced to a 31-14 lead in the first quarter, increased this to 53-29 by half-time, edged the third quarter 15-12 before BBS took the fourth 24-9 to make the final 77-65 scoreline more respectful. El Yettefti 34, Yeats 14 and Dylan Gomez 10 led the winners, while Yome 24, Garcia 16 and Gabi Gomez 12 topped the losers.

Europa Valmar Reserves Are The Surprise Team In Ko Cup

Europa Valmar registered Mo El Yettefti and Carter Newsome, two of their prominent players, with their Reserves team. This decision strengthened the latter, even though their bid to win the highly competitive Division 2 failed, and obviously gave these two young players more matches as they could also play in their first team.
As it happened, both teams were drawn to play each other in the KO Cup quarter finals, where players can only play for the team in which they are registered, and here the Reserves registered an unexpectedly big win (87-64), led by Rhys Borge 21, El Yettefti 23 and Newsome 18, with Postigo 15, Guerra 11 and Chris Pearce 10 best for EV.
In the other quarter-final actually played - disappointingly, GibYellow Beasts and Bavaria Blue Stars were given walk-overs by Bayside and Hercules - the highlight was Alex Garcia’s 55 points in Bavaria Blue Stars Giants’s 100-77 win over Hercules Reserves. The winner’s player-coach, Stuart Felice hit 15 points, while Angel Chozas and Marcos Rodriguez got 25 each and Jairo Ledesma 17 for the losers.
In the semi-finals, Bavaria Blue Stars (Yome 23, Guzman 19, Jose Duarte 14, Angel Guerrero 14) beat Bavaria Blue Stars Giants (Nicky Gracia 21, Rafa Aradas 18, Garcia 17, Michael Ruiz 13) by 86-76; and Europa Valmar Reserves (Newsome 39, El Yettefti 22) beat GibYellow Beasts (Gareth Balban 22, Jason Schwartz 11) by 86-54.
The final was on Tuesday as we went to press.

Bavaria Blue Stars And Hercules Gators Win U14 Leagues

Bavaria Blue Stars (Ben Lejeune 27, Shae Felice 10) comfortably beat Europa Valmar (Jamie Attias 31) by 60-45 in the second match of the best-of-three play-offs to clinch the u14 League.
Bayside (Max De Haro 19, Jaylan Pareja 19, Harry Breeze 11) beat Hercules Gators 68-27 to finish third.

Hercules Gators (Noa Aranzana 26, Briella Bagu 14, Chloe Balban 11) were pushed all the way before beating Bayside (Ava Perez 16, Erin Doherty 14) 49, thus recording a 2-0 win in the final play-offs to take the the u14 Girls League.
Bavaria Blue Stars (Eva Debono 16, Lily Mauro 15, Isla Balban 12) beat Europa Valmar (Adriana Hernandez 23) to take third place.

Remarkable Fight Back Foiled

The second match in the best-of-three u12 Final play-offs had the spectators on the edge of their seats as Bayside, winners of Match 1 but trailing 21-43 with a quarter (10 minutes) to play, staged a remarkable fight back to level the scores at 46-46 with 18 seconds left. Hercules Gators took a time-out and the instructions given were heeded by young Michael Cassaglia who found space to lay-up unopposed to win the match, foiling Bayside’s efforts and taking the Play-offs to a third and decisive match, to be played on Friday at 7:30 pm. Cassaglia and Nicky Delgado were the winners’ joint top scorers with 13 each,
Bavaria Blue Stars (Nolan Romero 13, Jeremy Yeo 11) beat Europa Valmar (Ayan Shivdasani 19, Jai Gracia 11) 64-35 to take 3rd place.

Strait Stars Win Wdl

Strait Stars overcame a very young Med Fever 58-44 to win the Women’s Development League. Harriet Gil 17, Jayde Garro 14 and Anika Perez 10 led the winners, and Briella Bagu 20 and Brylee Costa 11 shone for the Fever.