On Saturday night the Dundalk Ravens let slip a fantastic opportunity to pull further ahead at the top of the league by losing to Savi BC with a helping hand I must say from some poor calls by the officials down the stretch of the game. The Ravens missing a few starters from the team began brightly with a solid team performance which was lead by Fu Faapito. Fu made some great assists and also contributed to the scores himself early in the contest. Fast break points by Aaron Lawless and strong inside plays by Andrius Burba put the Ravens up 7 at the end of the first quarter. It could have been alot more only for the five threes scored by Savi.
The second quarter of the game was exciting as it was score for score with great scores coming from Darren McGovern, Liam Woods and AJ O'Neil. Great defensive rebounds by Andrius Burba kept the smaller Ravens in touch with Savis' strong emergence into the game. By half time the Ravens where still up by seven points with a scoreline of 48-41.
The third quarter was a difficult time for the Ravens as Savi came out the better after the half time break. The Ravens struggled to keep up with the physical aggression but to them by Savi. This lead to bad decision making and poor passes which lead to easy scores by Savi. Though the Ravens managed to find some composure towards the end of the quarter with two three points coming from Darren McGovern and good inside scores by Andrius Burba to leave the Ravens up by three.
The final quarter was entertaining to say the least. Savi hit a couple of long three pointers at the beginning and also added a fast break lay up to move 5 points ahead before the Ravens could mange to settle into the forth quarter. Some poor rebounding by the Ravens gave alot of second chance opportunities to Savi to help themselves to a healthy lead. Though the Ravens where boosted by the hot shooting hand of Darren McGovern who hit five second half three pointers and had six in total. This helped the Ravens to pull back to being two points down with 24 seconds remaining. To anyone who understand the final few seconds of a basketball match knows that to get the ball back you must steal it quickly or foul to put the team on the free throw line and hope they miss. So after they did not manage a steal a quick foul was committed on the ball by Fu Faapito but it was adjudged by the referee as intentional which meant that Savi would have two shots and the ball back in their possession. The referees claim that it is a new rule that you can't intentional foul in the final minutes, but this was a play to steal the ball and was judged as an intentional foul. Worse was to follow as when the Ravens almost stole the ball for a second time a second intentional foul was called by the referee to the amazement of not only the Ravens but Savi also. So the game was settled on the free throw line and left the Ravens to savour a poor loss to a team they should have beaten.
Team and Scorers
Fu Faapito (6)
Darren McGovern (31)
John Rafferty
Liam Woods (5)
David Maguire (3)
Tadas Nerblstas (3)
AJ O'Neil (2)
Mateusz Kirpinski
John Loughlin
Andrius Burba (16)
Aaron Lawless (15)
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