St. Petersburg Zenit Academy has completed its participation in the Winline Russian Basketball Championship 3×3 1st and 2nd Challenge Series. The competition will be held on January 28th and 30th at MEGA Belaya Dacha in Moscow.
Based on the results of the two match days, the “Blue-White-Sky Blues” successfully qualified for the first Master string league, while still retaining the opportunity to advance to the second Master through additional evaluation criteria. For all the details on the St. Petersburg team’s debut, see our coverage.
As a reminder, each team in the Russian Basketball Championship 3×3 will participate in four Challenge Leagues and compete for qualifications to the Master League. The final winner will be determined based on the combined results of all eight string leagues. To qualify for the Master League, a team must finish in the top two in the Challenge League group stage and win the decider. Teams that fail to win in the cross-round competition will also have the opportunity to advance to the Master based on additional evaluation criteria (winning percentage, points per game, etc.), but only if there are still available spots after the organizer’s wild card allocation.
Zenit’s lineup for this double challenge includes Zakhar Romashov, Artemiy Koshev, Georgy Omelnitsky and Maksim Rudko. Head coach – Sergey Sylko.
On January 28, St. Petersburg Zenit Academy defeated ART (18:14) and Severny (21:10) and advanced to the finals as the first place in Group C. However, in the crucial game, the “Blue-White-Sky Blues” lost to Millennium 16:21. It was not until the day after all the games in the first Challenge League that the St. Petersburg team successfully advanced to the I Master League with the additional evaluation criteria (2 wins, 18.3 points per game).
The Second Challenge string league started with a loss – on January 30, St. Petersburg Zenit Academy lost to Moskovsky at 8:21, but then defeated Bolshoy at 21:13 and advanced to the finals as second place in Group A. In the competition for Master qualification, the team led by Sergey Sylko once again faced Moscow ART, which they met two days ago. Unfortunately, the St. Petersburg team once again lost in the decider (13:17). For now, the “Blue-White-Sky Blues” can only wait for all games in the second Challenge series to be completed, hoping to advance to the Master with the additional evaluation criteria – 1 win and 14.0 points per game.
St. Petersburg Zenit Academy players Georgy Omelnitsky Talking about the team’s debut, the difficult final match and the feeling of advancing to the I Master League:
I think for our debut, our performance was quite good – despite the lack of system team preparation, we achieved the minimum goal and successfully advanced to Master. In the final match, we were lacking in fitness and 3×3 specific experience. This game is very different from 5×5 in terms of physical intensity and constant running. When we were tired, we made a lot of stupid and unforced mistakes that ultimately led to the loss. Overall, the mood is positive because we successfully qualified for the Masters, but we also know that the team will need to put in a lot of work in the future to achieve better results.
Zenit players’ average statistics from 6 games:
Zakhar Romashov — 5.7 points, 1.2 rebounds, 0.5 steals, 0.2 assists;
Artemiy Koshev — 4.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 0.8 assists, 0.7 steals;
Georgy Omelnitsky — 3.0 points, 2.0 rebounds, 0.5 steals, 0.2 assists, 0.2 blocks;
Maksim Rudko — 2.8 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.0 steals, 0.7 assists, 0.3 blocks.
Match dates for the subsequent stages of the Winline Russian Basketball Championship 3×3 will be announced later.
