The final day of EuroBasket Women started with the classification games for minor places with the final and closing ceremony later in the evening.
Spain take the Bronze medal after holding off Belarus (63-56)in a match for third place. Anna Montañana from Spain top scored with 16 points.
Greece have qualified for the World Championship after beating Italy in a dramatic fashion (60-56) with Evantia Maltsi scoring 26 points.
Latvia ended the tournament on a high by beating the Slovak Republic (67-59) for the 7th place.
You can read more about the games of interest by clicking on the following links or scrolling down the page:
Greece leave EuroBasket Women with qualification for World Championship in 2010
After a cautious opening which lasted about five minutes with Italy leading (5-4), the game came to life with a three-pointer by Laura Macchi for Italy.
This was followed by a flourish of baskets. Evanthia Maltsi hit consecutive three-pointers for Greece. However Italy quickly responded with Marte Alexander and Simona Ballardini to go back into the lead (13-10).
Maltsi finally got help offensively with Zoi Dimitrakou and Pelagia Papamichail scoring for Greece to level the score.
Dimitrakou then hit her second trey of the quarter for Greece to edge the first quarter (18-15).
Greece continued from where they left off with the first 5 points of the quarter.
Kathrin Ress finding their way to the basket and draw level with Manuela Zanon splitting a pair of free-throws (25-25) with three minutes to play in the second period.
Italy went into the interval ahead (29-27) with Chiara Pastore and Raffaella Masciadri opening their accounts.
Ballardini scored for Italy in the first minute of the final quarter and then Italy had to cope with Maltsi as she scored 6 points for Greece.
A lay-up by Macchi allowed Italy to keep the lead (50-46) with five minutes to play.
Kalentzou (right) (50-50) with four minutes to play.
Maltsi hit a trey with 2:35 for her 23rd point of the game to give Greece the lead. Her team-mates then took over the scoring as Greece led (57-52) with 41.7 seconds left to play.
Greece went on to win (60-56).
Maltsi led the scoring for Greece with 28 points and Macchi was best scorer for Italy with 22 points.
Greece finish fifth at the EuroBasket Women 2009 and have qualified for the World Championship in 2010 and the next EuroBasket 2011 in Poland.
EuroBasket Women 2009 Box Scores .
EuroBasket Women 2009 audio after match comments
Evanthia Maltsi was proud of her team-mates and thanked her coach.
Styliani Kaltsidou and Pelagia Papamichail are both happy with the victory and the qualification for the World Championship.
Pelagia added that, because of what they did, a lot of people in Greece were watching women's basketball this weekend.
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Latvia finish 7th at Eurobasket Women
In a lively first quarter the two teams played offensive basketball. Latvia scored first and held on to the lead for three minutes.
Martina Gyurcsi gave the Slovak Republic the lead for the first time in the match (6-5) which her side held on to despite the 9 points scored by Zane Tamane of Latvia (17-13).
The game picked up during the second period with Latvia playing more aggressively.
Anete Jekabsone-Zogota from Latvia brought the teams level (19-19) with two minutes played in the quarter.
Sabine Niedola (right).
Latvia went into the locker room leading (31-27).
The third quarter belonged to Niedola from Latvia as she fought tooth and nail for every ball at both ends of the court.
Her energy helped Latvia regain control of the game as they went into the final period leading (52-45).
The Slovak Republic stepped up the tempo but were unable to close the gap and trailed by 10 points (51-61) with foru minutes to play.
Zuzana Zirková fired in a trey as the Slovak Republic made one last attempt to save the game.
Her next two shots failed to drop but she became a concern for the Latvian coach Ainars Zvirgzdins . He called for a time-out with 21/2 minutes left to play.
Once again Niedola came to the rescue with a torpedo half-court pass to Basko who scored. Niedola then followed this up with 2 points in the paint.
For the Slovak Republic this was no way back into the game and Latvia won (67-59) to finish in 7th place at EuroBasketWomen 2009.
Niedola was the top scorer with 16 points and she also had 11 rebounds.
EuroBasket Women 2009 Box Scores .
EuroBasket Women 2009 audio after match comments
Liene Jansone explained that they had a great start to the EuroBasket Women, then there were tough games against Spain and Russia.
She said after the overtime defeat against Russia they had nothing left for the game against Italy.
She thanked the fans for the support and the flowers. She concluded that all this made it feel that they did something great.
Anete Jekabsone-Zogota said it was unbelievable to play at home and that they were disappointed not to have won a medal, which many people had expected.
She went on to explain that this day they demonstrated that they could fight and to have won again was great. Even if they had lost they had shown how competitive they could be.
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France and Russia qualify for the 2009 Women European Championship
France and Russia qualify for the 2009 Women European Championship
Russia required overtime against Latvia, while France just made it
Belarus and Spain qualify for semi-final
One on One with Maris Moviks
France beat Russia. Belarus and Italy are in quarter-final
Spain down hosts, while Greece qualify for quarter-final
Belarus keep hope alive while Russia win again
Spain are the only team undefeated in Group E
France stay on track in beating Turkey (55-43)
Russia in quarter-final
France taken to the wire against Lithuania (57-55)
Spain and Latvia in quarter-final
France beat Israel (73-70) to end first phase unbeaten
Four teams go home
France need overtime to beat Belarus (63-61)
Five teams qualify for the next phase
France beat Italy (76-61)
EuroBasket Women news from day 1
Return from EuroBasket Women 2009 finals to "What's New" page
Return to Senior International Basketball
EuroBasket Women 2009 pictures credits :
womensbasketball-in-france.com
Agenzia Ciamillo-Castoria/E.Castoria
Miguel Bordoy Cano
Date: 20 June 2009
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Two quick baskets from Tamara Abalde at the start of the second quarter inspired Amaya Valdemoro (left) as she hoped skipped and jumped into the paint to score (19-8).
Spain continued their scoring festival with Anna Cruz, Silva Dominguez and finally Anna Montañana to complete an 18-0 run to go in front (27-8).
Spain relaxed a little and Belarus fired in a couple of three-pointers by Natallia Marchanka and Natallia Anufryienka.
This forced Spain to change defensive options which enabled them to stop the Belarus onslaught before heading to the locker room leading (36-20).
Belarus scored 7 quick points to start the third period which forced Evaristo Pérez to call a time-out with less than two minutes played in the third period.
Anufryienka continued to cause Spain problems again before Valdemoro ended the onslaught with a trey.
However this did not stop the domination of Belarus.
Good clutch shooting and patient build-ups allowed Belarus to reduce the deficit to 5 points (38-43) with four minutes left to play in the third quarter.
Spain managed to stop Belarus from scoring and went into the final period leading (49-40) after Laura Nicolls knocked in a three-pointer from the corner with four seconds to play.
Belarus were not able to bring the score down at the start of the final period. Once Torrens and Montañana found their scoring touch for Spain, it became difficult for Belarus (60-48).
However Yelena Leuchanka had other ideas and started to score regularly. Then Anufryienka managed to intercept a ball and set up Marchanka for a three-pointer.
The Spanish coach called for a time-out with 42 seconds left with Spain leading (61-56).
There was no comeback for Belarus anymore and Valdemoro finished the scoring as Spain won the bronze medal at EuroBasket Women (63-56).
Laia Palau said that Spain only lost one match during this competition and deserved to be on top of the podium.
In the match for third place she said that Spain led for most of the game and that they did what was required to win.
Italy came back strongly with Macchi and Kathrin Ress finding their way to the basket and draw level with Manuela Zanon splitting a pair of free-throws (25-25) with three minutes to play in the second period.
Italy went into the interval ahead (29-27) with Chiara Pastore and Raffaella Masciadri opening their accounts.
Ballardini scored for Italy in the first minute of the final quarter and then Italy had to cope with Maltsi as she scored 6 points for Greece.
A lay-up by Macchi allowed Italy to keep the lead (50-46) with five minutes to play.
Maltsi scored again for Greece and the teams were level for the fifth and last time by Kalentzou (right) (50-50) with four minutes to play.
Maltsi hit a trey with 2:35 for her 23rd point of the game to give Greece the lead. Her team-mates then took over the scoring as Greece led (57-52) with 41.7 seconds left to play.
Greece went on to win (60-56).
Maltsi led the scoring for Greece with 28 points and Macchi was best scorer for Italy with 22 points.
Greece finish fifth at the EuroBasket Women 2009 and have qualified for the World Championship in 2010 and the next EuroBasket 2011 in Poland.
Evanthia Maltsi was proud of her team-mates and thanked her coach.
The lead was to change hands five time during the quarter with Latvia gaining the upper hand in the last 90 seconds by scoring 6 uncontested points with the last coming from 17-year old Sabine Niedola (right).
Latvia went into the locker room leading (31-27).
The third quarter belonged to Niedola from Latvia as she fought tooth and nail for every ball at both ends of the court.
Her energy helped Latvia regain control of the game as they went into the final period leading (52-45).
The Slovak Republic stepped up the tempo but were unable to close the gap and trailed by 10 points (51-61) with foru minutes to play.
Zuzana Zirková fired in a trey as the Slovak Republic made one last attempt to save the game.
Her next two shots failed to drop but she became a concern for the Latvian coach Ainars Zvirgzdins. He called for a time-out with 21/2 minutes left to play.
Once again Niedola came to the rescue with a torpedo half-court pass to Basko who scored. Niedola then followed this up with 2 points in the paint.
For the Slovak Republic this was no way back into the game and Latvia won (67-59) to finish in 7th place at EuroBasketWomen 2009.
Niedola was the top scorer with 16 points and she also had 11 rebounds.
Liene Jansone explained that they had a great start to the EuroBasket Women, then there were tough games against Spain and Russia.
She said after the overtime defeat against Russia they had nothing left for the game against Italy.
She thanked the fans for the support and the flowers. She concluded that all this made it feel that they did something great.
