Charleville-Mézières's home form in the LFB is impressive with 5 wins from 6 games after beating USO Mondeville (63-61).
USO Mondeville took 14 hours to make the trip to Charleville-Mézières and then had a disastrous first quarter.
Charleville led (6-0) after five minutes. They stretched their advantage to (15-1) with eight minutes played.
K. B. Sharp ended the nightmare for Mondeville with back to back scores. However with 8 points from Djéné Diawara the hosts led (19-7) at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter was more balanced with USO Mondeville finally hitting some shots.
A triple by Belinda Mboma enabled Charleville to go into the interval with a 15-point lead (34-19).
After the break USO Mondeville were more aggressive and started to win the direct duals.
Anne-Sophie Pagnier hit shots from all over the court. With Sharp also connecting from the land of many the deficit came down to 6 points (34-40) with a little under three minutes left in the quarter.
Amel Bouderra's trey from the top of key stopped the advance of Mondeville.
Despite Charleville-Mézières going into the final quarter leading (46-38) they were still on the back foot for most of the final quarter with Valeriya Berezhynska and Aija Brumermane winning their duals in the paint for the guests.
Sarra Ouerghi (right) came to the rescue for the home side on several occasions. With the game in money-time she put her team 5 points in front (62-57).
The match was played out on the free-throw line and. With 18 seconds left to play Mondeville trailed (61-63) and had the chance to either win the game or force overtime.
Mondeville slowly ran down the clock and with four seconds left to play an opening appeared for a shot. But they decided to make one more pass and threw the ball out of bounds. With this the chance was gone.
Diawara finished with a double double of 18 points and 11 rebounds while Kristen Mann joined Ouerghi with 11 points for Charleville-Mézières' fifth LFB victory.
Sharp played the full 40 minutes for Mondeville and was the team's best player with 22 points and 5 assists
The rest of the LFB news from Friday and Saturday
Bourges Basket somehow made it to Toulouse, then struggled for 40 minutes but still came out on top (63-55).
It took Bourges almost 17 minutes to take charge of the game after Anaël Lardy put them in front for good (30-28).
Bourges shot the ball better than their guests but had more turnovers. Yet with 15 points from Paoline Salagnac (left) and 14 by Cathy Joens they hung on for LFB victory number 11.
Lattes-Montpellier beat Basket Landes (78-57) after surviving an explosive first quarter (24-26).
Basket Landes fell apart during the second and third quarter and just scored 16 points while conceding 42 points.
Fatimatou Sacko led the Montpellier attack with 15 points and 8 rebounds.
The last three games from the 11th round of the Ligue Féminine de Basketball were played with Arras, Challes-les-Eaux and Tarbes coming away with the victories.
Tarbes travelled to Aix-en-Provence and came away with maximum points after winning (71-61) in a lively but not exciting match.
Tarbes opened the game with a (7-0) run with Jelena Dubljevic, a triple by Erin Thorn (left) and Ivanka Matic all getting on the score sheet.
Greek international Zoi Dimitrakou stopped the initial Tarbes onslaught with a couple of baskets.
However Tarbes quickly got back to scoring and with six minutes played they led (14-4).
Hollie Grima (13 points) and Dimitrakou (19 points) battled away for the hosts in reducing the deficit. But the Tarbes trio of Dubljevic, Matic and Thorn shared all the points in a (23-16) first quarter lead.
Tarbes struggled during the second quarter while the hosts managed to bring down the deficit (26-29) with two minutes left to play in the first half.
Alain Jardel made some tactical changes which resulted in his side finishing with a 7-0 run going into the interval (34-26).
Foul problems for Dubljevic and Naura El Gargati early in the third quarter meant they had to stay on the bench for most of the third quarter.
However Aix-en-Provence remained on the back foot for most of this quarter.
Yet a moment of indiscipline in the dying seconds by Florence Lepron who questioned a call against her with her team leading (52-38) allowed Aix 6 points.
As she had been warned earlier in the game, she was given a technical as well.
Aix made 3 of 4 of the free-throws and punished Tarbes further with a buzzer beater three-pointer by Sabrina Réghaïssia (right) (11 points) on the final attack.
Aix trailing (44-52) going into the final quarter scored first to make it a 6-point game (46-52).
This was as close as they came to disturb Tarbes for the rest of the game.
The officials who were having a difficult time decided to give Natalie Hurst a technical for flopping after she was knocked flying in a fifty-fifty challenge by Lepron.
Thorn hit both free throws to give Tarbes a 13-point lead (65-52) with just under four minutes to play.
The end of the game was scrappy with the officials blowing their whistles too often which stopped the flow of this LFB game.
Tarbes held their nerve at the end to win with Dubljevic, Matic and Thorn scoring 19, 18 and 16 points each while Lepron scored 6 points and dished out 5 assists.
Tarbes remain in second place in the LFB despite having played one game less than everybody else except for Challes-les-Eaux.
Challes-les-Eaux started their game against Villeneuve d'Ascq cautiously. The teams were evenly matched (4-4) with four minutes played.
Challes-les-Eaux then stepped on the accelerator and blew their guests away with a 9-0. They went 11 points clear (21-10) with 15 points coming from Mistie Williams-Bass (left in picture).
However free throws by Carine Paul and Ingrid Tanqueray reduced the deficit for Villeneuve just before the end of the quarter (13-21).
Challes controlled the pace of the game all trough the second quarter. With consecutive tree-pointers by Clarisse Costaz and Bianca Thomas, they went 15 points clear (36-21) with 18 minutes played. They maintained this advantage going into the locker room (40-25).
The game ended as a contest with 13 minutes left to play after the hosts went on a 24-0 run (58-27). The game fizzled out with the hosts winning comfortably (66-41) with Williams-Bass leading the way with 19 points.
Challes-les-Eaux move into fourth place in the LFB while Villeneuve remain in 12th place.
Arras had to dig deep to overcome Nantes-Rezé (78-70) in the last LFB game of 2010.
Arras, playing at home, got off to a perfect start (10-0). Yet Nantes-Rezé were sparked into action with a triple by Caroline Aubert as they went on an 11-1 run concluded with a triple by Mélanie Plust.
Arras were able to get back in front with Marielle Amant hitting 3-of-4 from the charity stripes.
Pauline Akonga-N’Simbo (left) and Leilani Mitchell completed the scoring for Arras to finish the quarter with a 7-0 run to lead (19-11) going into the second quarter.
Olesia Malashenko opened the scoring in the second quarter with a pair of free throws for the hosts to go 10 points clear.
However the following five minutes belonged to the guests as they drew level with a trey by Joyce Cousseins-Smith (26-26).
Both teams dropped points at the free-throw line as the intensity picked up. Arras were able to regain the lead with a shot by Sarah Michel from the land of many (32-31) at the interval.
Arras stayed in front for the rest of the game and went into the final quarter leading by 10 points.
Akonga-N’Simbo led the way for Arras with 22 points while 2010 WNBA most improved player and LFB foreign player of the year Mitchell finished the game with 18 points and 7 assists.
Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...
Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?
Click on the HTML link code below.
Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment,
your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.