The 5th tour of the SuperLeague started today. Batumi hosted Delta and lost by 85:69, while Kutaisi visited Rustavi and won – 94:87 in a tense battle.
Two American Legionaries were released and 3 were added to Rustavi. After which the team is quite strengthened, so they resisted Kutaisians very well. Imeretian Club started with an advance and won the first period convincingly – 29:18. The key to their success was three-pointer shots. They scored 12 three-pointers in the first half and went to the big break with 18-points leadership – 60:42. The situation didn’t change until the final period. However, thanks to the effectiveness of Isaak Banks, Darryl Bryant and Kendarrius Hamilton, Rustavi reduced the difference to 5 points.
Two minutes were left before the end of the match and the hosts had a chance to succeed, however, David Lomidze of Kutaisi made them lose this hope with three pointer. Kutaisi won by 7 points and became the single leader of SuperLeague for at least 1 day.
Davit Lomidze led the winners with 19 points. Giorgi Barbaqadze scored 16 points. Akaki Lomouri and De Juan Wright collected 15-15 points each. Darryl Bryant was the most effective with 26 points in Rustavi. Kendarrius Hamilton and Isaak Banks scored 15-15 points each. The latter had 13 rebounds too.
Ramaz Gogoberishvili, Rustavi head coach:
“As you know we have released 2 foreigners and we brought 3 new, 2 of them have joined us for two days. They couldn’t pass all the defensive systems with the team yet. Nevertheless, if we made fewer mistakes in the first half, it would be possible to win this match. We will analyze the mistakes, the new players will play along with the team and we hope that we will achieve better results in the following matches “.
Kote Tughushi, Kutaisi head coach:
“As always, it is difficult to play in Rustavi and we have been preparing for this match, more so that the opponent had new legionaries and was quite strong, we didn’t have Levan Patsatsia which coused the rotation problems and the team members became tired. We could not hold the game fully and it was the merit of the fans too than Rustavians had chance in the last minutes. However, eventually we achieved our goal.”
