Taranto Pound Dynamo Moscow To Reach Final

Suzy Batkovic and Megan Mahoney provided Cras Basket Taranto with an irresistible one-two punch on Thursday as the Italian club won 85-75 at Dynamo Moscow to storm into the EuroCup Women Final.

Seven days after a 76-71 victory over Dynamo back in Italy, Roberto Ricchini's side prevailed with Australia international center Batkovic pouring in 24 points and Mahoney contributing 19.

The 15-point win on aggregate means Cras will take on Galatasaray in the final after the Turkish team overcame a 14-point deficit from the first leg by winning 62-39 at home over Dynamo Kursk.

Taranto succeeded in Moscow despite being out-rebounded 36-25.

They did, however, win the turnover battle with Dynamo committing 20 and Taranto just 13.

All appeared to be going according to plan for Dynamo when Janell Burse's lay-up inside the final minute of the opening quarter gave the Russians a 24-19 lead and leveled the tie on aggregate.

Taranto's response ultimately decided the outcome.

The 1.94m center Batkovic hit a jumper right before the end of the period, and the visitors went on to reel off 14 unanswered points.

Michelle Greco, Monica Bello, Audrey Sauret-Gillespie and Mahoney all scored in the run that left Taranto on top 33-24 and Dynamo dazed.

The Italians went in front by 11 in the quarter before going to half-time on top 44-36.

Batkovic had 12 points and Mahoney nine at the break, while Belinda Snell's nine led the home side.

Dynamo managed to reduce the arrears to just five in the third quarter but got no closer and headed to the fourth down 64-56.

Batkovic took her tally to 19 points with a jump shot at the beginning of the last quarter to make it 66-56. That gave the visitors a 15-point advantage on aggregate.

The second-leg lead ballooned to 75-62 with 5:10 remaining after an Ilisaine David jump shot and Cras stayed in command in the rest of the way.

Anete Jekabsone-Zogota had 18 points for Dynamo, with Burse contributing 17 and Snell scored 11 and pulled down nine rebounds.

Marina Kuzina scored 14 points for Dynamo but was just two of 11 inside  the arc and two of five beyond it.

Quotes Dynamo Moscow vs Cras Basket Taranto

Natalia Hejkova, Dynamo Moscow head coach:

Cras Basket deserved to play in the final. Our players looked bad. I asked them to concentrate on defense, grab rebounds but they didn't play the way I asked. We lost the first game in Italy mainly because of our own mistakes. All of us are very disappointed, but if we make 20 mistakes per game we would never play in the finals.

 Roberto Riccini, Cras Basket head coach:

We are very happy tonight. Dynamo Moscow is a very strong team. We won our home game and it seems that Dynamo lost confidence. Tonight we controlled the game from the very beginning to the end.