Gospic Prevail Over Brno

Gospic center Marija Vrsaljko had an impressive night with 20 points and 13 rebounds

Rising Czech star Alena Hanusová scored 18 points but Frisco Brno fell to a 73-62 defeat at Gospic Croatia on Wednesday.

In a Group C contest pitting teams that will not be advancing to the next stage of the EuroLeague Women, Gospic won with Marija Vrsaljko pouring in 20 points and corralling 13 rebounds.

The 22-year-old center equaled her season best in points and had her best night on the boards, with her previous high in rebounds 10 on January 18 against Lattes Montpellier.

The score was tied at 41-41 early in the second half when Vrsaljko hit a fast-break jumper.

Then with Gospic on top 45-41, 19-year-old Barbora Kaspárková drilled a three to cut the hosts' lead to just one.

Sandra Mandir, the Croatia national team captain, answered with a shot from the arc to take the Gospic advantage back to four.

After a Jasmine Thomas basket cut the deficit to two for Brno, Eva Komplet knocked down a three-pointer for Gospic.

Komplet then capped the 10-0 run with another bomb for a 58-46 lead with 58 seconds to go in the third quarter.

Stipe Bralic's team had a comfortable advantage the rest of the way in winning for the fifth time this season.

Brno suffered their 12th loss of the season.

Quotes Gospic CO vs. Frisco Brno

Frisco Brno Assistant Coach Milan Veverka
"We were a little afraid of this game because we lost by a lot of points when we played Gospic at home. When we played two away games we played better, but our team is a young team and they have perspective. We mainly lost tonight because Gospic had 56 rebounds and our team had 33. Their center position is much better than ours and that is one of the main reasons that they won tonight."

Gospic CO Head Coach Stipe Bralić
"This was a very difficult game that showed that all EuroLeague Women clubs have top teams and physical strength. I think that we won this game mainly because we played defence as a team in the third quarter and even though our shoots were not that great, we managed to win with more rebounds. The rebounds brought us the win. Proof of our good defence is that the opposing team was only able to score 29 points in the second half. We had 23 rebounds more and that was our advantage in the game. This is the first time that we were able to take that many rebounds. This is our fifth win in EuroLeague Women and we are very proud of that."

Frisco Brno player Romana Stehlikova
"We were afraid that we would not win this game. We made some stupid mistakes when we played worse in the second half and with a 10-point difference we just couldn't catch up. Of course, if our rebounds were worse, we really didn't have much of a chance of winning. We wanted to win so much, but nervousness got the best of us."

Gospic CO player Eva Komplet
"The few minutes I get to play in a game, I try my best. This is my first time playing in the EuroLeague Women and I hope that next year I'll play much better. In the second half of the game we played well as a team and the end result showed that."