“Liepāja” basketball players celebrated their victory in the “Pafbet” Latvian-Estonian Basketball League (LIBL) match against “Ogri” on Wednesday, reports LETA.
“Liepāja” won with 75:61 (19:19, 21:10, 21:17, 14:15).
Emīls Krūmiņš collected 20 points, five rebounds and five personal notes for the home team, Kristaps Ķilps scored 11 points and seven errors, and Kristaps Miglinieks scored 10 points.
Mats Juciks collected 15 points and seven rebounds for Ogrenians, Gustavs Kampus scored ten points, and Kristaps Dārgais added ten rebounds to eight points.
“Liepāja” lost to “University of Tartu”/”Maks & Moorits” led by Gundar Vētras with 63:78 and “VEF Rīga” with 76:86.
After a series of three successes, “Ogre” lost to “Ventspilij” with 78:84, defeated “Parnu Sadam” at home with 93:72 and lost to “Rīgas Zellų” with 75:87.
Kristaps Ćilps averaged 15.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game for Liepaja, while Emīls Krūmiņš and Klāvs Dubults scored 12.8 and 11.9 points respectively, Dubults averaging 7. 7 under the basket won balls in the game.
So far, Nigel Johnson was the most productive player with an average of 14.6 points and 5.2 assists per game, while Matys Kulačkovskis scored an average of 12 points and 5.4 rebounds per game.
This season, the teams had already met twice, in the middle of October, “Ogrei” convincingly won at home (86:62), but on Saturday, in the first match of the Latvian Cup quarter-finals, the Liepaja team won convincingly (96:74).
“Liepāja” and “Ogre” share the eighth-ninth place in the tournament table with nine victories in 17 games.
In addition to the Riga-based Ukrainian team Slobojanskas “Prometey” in the LIBL this season, “VEF Rīga”, “Ventspils”, “Liepāja”, “Ogre”, “University of Latvia”, “Valmiera Glass”/”Vidzemes Augstskola” and “Rīgas Zeļļi” are competing. Estonia is represented in LIBL by Tallinn “Kalev”/”Cramo”, “University of Tartu”/”Maks & Moorits”, “Parnu Sadam”, “Viimsi”, Rapla “Avis Utilitas”, Tallinn “TalTech”/”Optibet”, “Keila” /”Coolbet” and Tallinn’s “Kalev”/”Snabb”.
In the main tournament, teams compete in a two-round tournament, after which the best eight will participate in the playoffs. In the quarter-finals and semi-finals, the winners will be decided in series of up to two victories, but in the final, one match will be played on the court of the team that will be in the highest place in the main tournament.
The best men’s basketball clubs of Latvia and Estonia played in a joint championship for the first time in the 2019 season, when 15 teams participated in the competition. “Ventspils” basketball players became the first winners of the league in the final four tournament.
Last season, in the finals of the “Final 4” tournament, the basketball players of Slobojanska “Prometey” became the champions.
