Spartak Hold On To Stay Perfect

Russian international Anton Ponkrashov had 10 points for Spartak

Spartak held off BC NN down the stretch to remain perfect in EuroChallenge Group A with a 72-65 road win.

The hosts twice closed to within two points in the fourth quarter, but could not find the tying basket as Spartak moved to 3-0 while BC NN remained winless at the foot of the standings.

Spartak had been looking comfortable with a 59-51 lead early in the fourth quarter, but Ivan Paunic's three-pointer sparked a comeback that saw them make it 59-57 on Vukasin Aleksic's jump-shot.

Evgeny Kolesnikov answered with a lay-up but two free throws from Artem Yakovenko again cut the gap to two, 61-59.

Dijon Thompson nailed a three for Spartak, and they continued to pull away, with Pero Antic's dunk with 2:30 left stretching the lead into double figures, 71-61 as the hosts' hopes faded.

Miha Zupan led Spartak with 16 points while Henry Domercant had 14 and Antic added 12 and nine rebounds.

Anton Ponkrashov also reached double figures with 10 points.

Paunic turned in a big night for the hosts with 22 points and seven rebounds, while Valiantsin Yurchyk added 14 and Aleksic had 11.

Quotes BC NN vs. Spartak

Spartak player Evgeny Kolesnikov:
"The game was tough and aggressive today. We tried to adapt to such style of the game in the first half and in the second one we started to feel the rhythm, understood how to play and played our game. We won and it's the most important thing that we are in the first place in the group now."

Spartak Head Coach Zvi Sherf:
"I am happy that we won. Now we are on the top of the group with three wins. I expected such result even with the difficult schedule that we have. But I expected that the team would play better and we didn't play enough good today. May be it was good enough to win but we had to play much better. But we have a very tough schedule. Now we spend more time in planes, airports, trains, train stations but not in gyms. And I don't know another way to keep the team in a good shape instead of practices. We didn't practice enough for these 10 days. Now we have to be ready to our next game with Nizhny Novgorod - in PBL - which will be on Saturday at home. We want also to win in PBL and it's very difficult to play against the same team in 3-4 days. I congratulate Nizhny Novgorod with good game. There are many young players in the team with a lot of motivation and aggressiveness. I appreciate it."

BC Nizny Novgorod Head Coach Zoran Lukic:
"I want to congratulate Spartak for a good game. We had some chances in the 1 half but in the 2 half Spartak was great, and did not let us show all we can. I can see that we progress. Our team is young and I am sure that in the next games we will try to play better."

BC Nizny Novgorod player Valentin Yurchyk:
"We did not do what our coach asked us to do in this game. In the 2 half we did not show our best game. Spartak today was great. And we do not have enough experience to win such games."