BG Dorsten 51 vs. Halcon Avenida 68

Spanish side Halcon Avenida opened their EuroCup Women campaign with a road win against Dorsten on Wednesday night.

It was a 2-woman show for Avenida, led by 40 year old forward Elena Tornikidou and US import Kelly Schumacher who combined for 52 of their side's 68 points.

Remarkably, the Schumacher-Tornikidou duo were the only two players to get on the scoresheet for Halcon in the first half. They scored all 32 of the Spanish side's points, enough to take a 30-32 lead into the half.

Dorsten began to wilt under the pressure in the second half, and with the 194cm Schumacher having her way inside, and Tornikidou hitting from distance, the German side had no answer.

Halcon outscored Dorsten 15-3 in the final 6 minutes of the third period, allowing them to take a comfortable 36-51 advantage into the fourth quarter.

It was cruise control the rest of the way for Halcon and they finished comfortable winners, 51-68.

In the second half things went worse for Dorsten. Salamanca did not let them a chance to score from short distance and forced them to shoot from the outside, but it didn´t work. Salamanca had no Problems to score under the basket where Kelly Schumacher acted brilliant and made 27 points. From the distance Elena Tornikidou scored 25 points without Dorsten getting them under controll. Only to many turnovers for Salamanca prevented a higher loose for Dorsten in the end.

Quotes BG Dorsten vs. Halcon Avenida

Jose Hernandez, Salamanca:

It was a very hard game, as we suspected it to be. It was very important to start winning today. If our Americans would have come earlier we would be better prepared and would have done much better. But we are getting better day by day.

Mark Köpp, Dorsten:

We did a very good first half and gave our best in defense but in the second half we became tired and had too few possibilities to change our players. We just needed someone there to come in and score. Salamanca just shot better in the end. We had too many problems to score under the basket and would have needed better shots from the outside. We also should have put more pressure on them.