Fenerbahce Rout Gospic On The Road

Fenerbahce stayed unbeaten with a 92-60 demolition of winless Gospic Croatia. Playing away from home, Laszlo Ratgeber's team got big performances once again from Penny Taylor, Diana Taurasi and Ivana Matovic.

Taylor thrust herself into contention for Player of the Week honours again with 19 points and 12 rebounds while Taurasi and Matovic scored 18 apiece.

The visitors out-rebounded Gospic 53-26.

Fener led 30-21 at the end of the first quarter and then delivered the knockout punch in the second.

On top 39-30 with 5:10 to go in half, Taylor hit a jump shot and Esmeral Tuncluer followed with a three-pointer.

After Taylor knocked down another jumper and Taurasi split a pair of free-throws, Nevriye Yilmaz capped the run with a basket for a 48-30 lead.

Fenerbahce had a double-digit advantage the rest of the way.

Sandra Mandir poured in 18 points for Gospic.

Quotes Gospic Croatia vs. Fenerbahce

Hana Horakova, Fenerbahce player:
"Our coach told us to play the whole game the best way that we know.  At the beginning of the game the Gospić players surprised us with their excellent playing, but after the first fifteen minutes, their strength weakened and that made our job easier."

Laszlo Ratgeber, head coach of Fenerbahce:
"We knew that Gospić are a very well prepared team, when it comes to shooting.  They showed this in Istanbul when they racked up 92 points. But, their precision tonight gradually got weaker while our players continued playing the same. I know that all the travelling they have been doing has left a trace on their game and combined with the pressure we put on them, they couldn't play any better. Otherwise, we played well from the beginning to the end of the game."

Ivana Jurčević, Gospić Croatia Osiguranje player:
"We fought as well as we could, but our shooting eventually let us down. We know that Fenerbahce is a much better team than ours, but had we had a better shooting the result of course would have been different."

Stipe Bralić, head coach of Gospić Croatia Osiguranje:
"Fenerbahce are a much stronger team than we are. The best players in the world play for them and we really could not keep up with them.  They won by a 32-point difference which they deserved. I cannot say anything bad against the players because up until now my team has used up a lot of its energy and we still have a job to complete with the remaining games against strong teams."