Despite being the second day of the EBA League, for Aloe Plus Lanzarote Conejeros it was the first official match this weekend after more than seven months away from the whirlwind of living the league competition from within. The rival to visit was the Olympic District, a club that this year aims for the top and had already started last week.
The Lanzarote team traveled to Madrid full of enthusiasm for the debut this season and went to the match in a masterful way, surprising their rival, who was below on the scoreboard thanks to the leadership that Cándido Matoso and Richard Nguema were imposing on the court, carrying young, less experienced players who knew how to follow the instructions given by the coach from the bench and the captains from the court, even having a 7-point advantage with a partial score of 0-5, which allowed for good feelings. In the last stages of the first quarter, the Madrid team managed to cut the difference and left the court with a score of 12 to 15 for those from Arrecife.
In the second quarter, the Olympic District came out much better, managing to turn the score around thanks to a great Andrés Rico who, with his experience, knew how to pull his team to make a great partial score. Iván Fernández's team was well settled on the court, but the rival was somewhat better, successful in the shots and taking advantage of some defensive errors that cost the Lanzarote team dearly. But despite this, and that the Madrid team had a lead of up to 11 points on the scoreboard, the Aloe Plus Lanzarote Conejeros did not give up and went to the break only 7 points behind and with excellent feelings from the first 20 minutes of the match.
In the third quarter, the start was hopeful, the team started well, cutting the differences somewhat and believing in their possibilities to add the victory, but the rival also plays and the successes began with distant shots that ended up breaking the match in their favor, making it very uphill for the islanders, conceding a partial score of 18-0 that clearly knocked down the orange aspirations. At the end of the third quarter, the difference, the maximum until then, was 25 points, reflecting the scoreboard numbers of 68 to 43, impossible to overcome in just 10 minutes.
So the last quarter, never losing sight of the possibility of coming back, the orange team took the opportunity to add minutes, try new things and get rolling, taking into account that it was the first game the team had played since the Canary Islands Cup in September. The inexperience in the category is a problem due to the mistakes that are made, especially in defense, but it is also an advantage due to the speed of learning and the Lanzarote bench knows this, which draws good conclusions from the match and how well the young players such as Alejandro García, Víctor de Haro, Christian Rodríguez or the Irishman Finn Hughes were, without forgetting the already 'veterans' such as Elvis Pereira or Axel Bello, who took positive experiences for future matches. In the end, the score, totally fair, reflected a victory of 93 to 61 for the Madrid team.
The Aloe Plus Lanzarote Conejero returned to Lanzarote with their mind set on the next match, which will be in two weeks, once the match of the next day against Agüimes has been postponed to December 8.
Technical Sheet
Olympic District (93): Alejandro Iglesias (5), Ignacio del Castillo (5), Adrián Escribano (2), Michael Drame (7) and Javier de la Blanca (15). Also played: Eduardo Manzano (4), Gabriel Gil (12), Alejandro Hernández (2), Manuel Villamandos (10), Andrés Rico (24) and Javier Pérez (7)
Aloe Plus Lanzarote Conejeros (61): Cándido Matoso (10), Elvis Pereira (5), Chike Agustine (12), Víctor de Haro (12) and Richard Nguema (2). Also played Alejandro García (9), Christian Rodríguez (5), Axel Bello (2) and Finn Hughes. (4)
Referees: Alejandro Gómez and Álvaro Ortín. They eliminated Alejandro Hernández from the local team for personal fouls.
Partial scores for each quarter: 12-15 / 37-30 (break) 68-43 / 93-61 (final)
Incidents: Match played at the Municipal Sports Hall in Madrid, belonging to the second day of the Liag EBA B-A 20/21