Late rally not enough to deny Papadopolou’s Cyprus

Malta 49
Cyprus 58

(11-12, 9-15, 16-16, 13-15)

The women’s basketball team GSSE 2013 adventure ended in total failure.

Yesterday, the 2009 gold medallists were beaten by Cyprus in their final match of the round-robin tournament to miss out on a place on the podium and finish bottom of the group.

Bar a patch in the last quarter, this was a performance to forget for Angela Adamoli’s girls who never got going as a poor defensive display, coupled with a lacklustre shooting percentage of only 28 per cent success, saw them suffer their third successive defeat at the Arena D’Coque in less than a week.

“It was a match that we should have won,” coach Adamoli conceded.

“Perhaps, we approached this match with a little bit of complacency but basketball matches are won on court and we simply failed to deliver.

“We came into this tournament adopting a different philosophy of play and maybe we need more time to start playing on a higher level. There’s lessons to be learned so this bad experience will per-haps serve us in good stead.”

Cyprus were the quicker out of the blocks and, inspired by Katia Papadopolou, they gave a torrid time to our players in the zone with their swift play.

Gradually, Malta came more into the picture but our problems in attack soon started to surface and Cyprus went six points clear in the second quarter following a Papadopoulou three-pointer – 20-14.

The non-stop Cyprus playmaker continued to do the damage as she hit another three-pointer with less than a minute before the break. Sam Brincat’s basket in the closing seconds reduced the gap to seven points, 27-20, at the break.

Cyprus maintained their command as play resumed and another triple from the impressive Papadopoulou stretched their advantage to 12 points, 39-27.

However, a Brietta Thomas three-pointer and a last-gasp Ashley Vella basket pushed Malta seven points behind, 43-36, with only the last 10 minutes left to play.

Malta scored the first four points of the final quarter and a Josephine Grima lay-up trimmed the deficit to just one point.

Game on... many might have thought with two minutes to go.

But Malta’s hopes of a comeback were shattered by a series of errors as the Cypriots, inspired by Papadopoulou (who else?... she was top scorer with 24 points), raced nine points clear to seal the match and leave our team without a medal.

Malta: S. Pace 3, B.L. Zammit, A. Vella 12, J. Cardona, L. Sciberras, S. Demartino 5, C. Grima, S. Brincat 7, C. Grima, A. Sciortino, E. Cassar, B. Thomas 9, J. Grima 13.