Scorpions setzen sich in einem spannenden Spiel gegen und/in Kapfenberg mit 66:57 durch.

The facts: G-State visited the Kapfenberg bulls arena without franchise player M. Batman Muhoberac, and sidekicks Marc and Fru (who is Robin here?). Kapfenberg as contender for the championship, pose a great challenge to the Scorpions. A victory as visitor gives a good shot for a pole position for the title.

Starters: Dule, Köbsi, Vale, Rich-the-beast, Sam.

First quarter: Not a good day Thursday to have a game. The game started slow for the gratkorners, being surpassed in speed and intensity in the first minutes of the match. Big men from Kapfenberg gave problems in the opening minutes to make some points in the paint. Gratkorn stayed alive thanks to some good individual actions from Sam and Dule (13 points combined in the quarter) to finish the quarter 17-15 down. Warm up period.

Second quarter: By the final minute of the first period the Scorpions got the pulse of the game and managed to build the first lead upon great defense and a solid performance from beyond the arc. Remarkable 3-pointer bombing delivered by Vale who opened the shooting contest in the first minute with two straight threes to put the team up for the first time in the game. It just took one missed attempt with close foul call to calibrate the fly-by-wire system to „not-in-my-nest-Sam“ to set 5 blocks in the game, boosting the intimidation in the gratkorner paint. Intensity in rebound and good distribution of the ball. Keeping the inside players fed and opening spaces for shooting with effective pick&roll between Sam and Dule from wich Vale took advantage as well. Strong offensive rebound plus the bucket for Rich to end the quarter with authority. G-State hit the locker room 31-37 up, with the confidence of work well done. The bulls were running out of options, relying completaly on their starter point guard, catalyst and finalizer from most actions of his team.

Third quarter: After half game, Kapfenberg full court press started to have an influence in the flow of the game. The situation, was solved as prepared, with support from all players to keep the command of the game and lead the team to the victory. Some speed and intensity was added to our game with Benny that gave some rest also to Dule after halftime. Superb performance in the paint in the third, where Sam took advantage of some missmatches in defense and gave some free lessons of post play against all the bulls defenders. The game was Well read by our PG to deliver the ball where it hurts the more. Kapfenberg trailed by, 13 (40-53) max difference of the game before the final period.

Fourth quarter: Games are lost in the first, second, or third quarter, but they are only won in the final one. G-State hit the court in the last ten minutes with hunger for the victory and sealing the game. Kapfenberg won´t let that happen easy and they rushed into the final quarter trying to break the gap and get in the game again. Number 5, explosive point guard from Kapfenberg, took over his team once more and raised the tempo of the game with some quick penetrations to tight the game at 6 points with 5 minutes to finish the game. At this time of the game, Gratkorn took over the pace of the game and controlled it with long possessions and reduced turn-overs to have a comfortable way back to the locker room without any incidences. In the final minutes the support from the bench players turned up deccisive (Kumpi 5p) to give the victory to the Scorpions. Kopsi played great D (yes, Köbsi :) ), floating in the zone in the final minutes cutting down all possibility from the bulls to have an extra pass option. Remaining 2 minutes, the game was up to 8 points lead for G-State, some final actions from Dule and Sam plus the freethrows Vale got sealed the final 57 – 66 visitor win.

Remarks: Second game of the Playoffs played in Kapfenberg, in front of 40 people. With this victory G-state leads alone the standings 2 games ahead from any contender, with one game still to be played between kapfenberg and UBSC. Next game will take place on Monday 16th at Gratkorn against UBSC.

Game keys: Good movement of the ball to avoid the full court press trap and ball movement to look for the advantage position plus a solid defense in 2-3 Zone helped the visitor team to leave with the two points in the standings. Coach Andre (young future promise in the sport :D) prepared a solution for the press that worked out as expected. Great D lead to some shot clock violations by the Home team that were very important at late minutes in the game.
Rafa, paint warrior and top german speaker of the team, had a first row sit to watch the game like Jack Nicholson at the Staples Center :) he was just looking at the game from inside. Top performance at BK after the game.

Scoring: Dule(24), Sam(16), Vale(13), Kumpi(5), Rafa(4), Richie(3), Köbsi(1), Moe, Konsti, Benny.