DGrasshoppers DS1 on the edge of elimination

There’s a good chance that the basketballers from STOL-Grasshoppers DS1 played their last home match of the season last Saturday.

The formation of coach Burhan Alibegovic lost again from ChallengeSports Rotterdam (76-84) and is one loss away from elimation in the half final of the play-offs.

Wednesday, in the 1st duel from the best-of-five-series, STOL-Grasshoppers couldn’t make a fist. It was a different story Saturday in the sport hall Cleijn Duin, but if your best is not good enough, you just have to admit that the opponent is too strong.

The team from Katwijk was, for 3 quarters, at least equal to the finalist of last season. The far away shots, that let the team down last Wednesday, were hitting their mark and also because the tempo was high the home team was able to take a big lead in the first period: 26-16.

Via a series of solo actions from the American guard, Launa Hochstetler, ChallangeSports were able to regroup in the second period. Then it was clear that the team from Rotterdam, in general, could speak of a wider quality of players. But STOL-Grasshoppers fought bravely further, and at halftime still held a small lead (42-40).

In the third quarter, it was Karin Kuijt who kept her team in the race. The guard shot in 4 3-pointers in this period. The 21 year old Kuijt is a very talented and complete guard, and is, together with the young center Eline Kraaijenoord, an important player that the Katwijk´s club can count on for years to come. But the older of the 2 Kuijt sisters in STOL-Grasshoppers DS1 (Sonja is younger) still misses the stability to take control of a situation. Setbacks, such as arbitration errors, sometimes lead to emotional outbursts, and this has a negative effect on her playing. This meant that in the last quarter she played a less strong role, while the team needed her badly at that time. After Kuijt’s 4th 3-pointer, STOL-Grasshoppers were still in the lead by 60-54, but then ChallengeSports were able to fairly easily tie the score at 60-60 via Jantine Kraak, because the home team were using small players to defend this center (who is almost 1.90 meter).

STOL-Grasshoppers scored 10 3-pointers in the match. Numbers 8 (66-64) and 9 (69-70) came from Rianne Philippo, number 10 (72-72) from Corine Manuputty, and then the scoring was over.

“You see that we have the tendency to rely on our 3-pointers”, says coach Alibegovic. “When things get tough, these players go back to what they trust - the far away shots.” But relying on successful 3-pointers to win an exciting play-off match, is different than taking these shots earlier in the game. That was the difference between these 2 teams on Saturday. The Rotterdamers went from 72-72 to 72-82 with little effort, and STOL-Grasshoppers started shooting with blanks. Again, Alibegovec couldn’t criticise his team. “They did everthing they could. There is just a big difference between these teams in quality and experience. Especially the extra experience counts in the play-offs.”

Tonight in Rotterdam is the 3rd match, and maybe the last in this excellent season.