The U-18 Onil Tournament, held in the town close to Alicante (Spain), started yesterday with four national teams competing. Russia and Spain started well after beating Italy and Germany. There are some interesting prospects in the tournament, like italian Francesco Candussi ('94), spaniards Javier Marin ('94) and Álex Suárez ('93) or german Bogdan Radosavljevic ('93). Let's take a look to what happened this first day.

 

Russia travelled only with seven players (one injured) and the half of the technical staff due to problems in Moscow airport, but wasn't a problem for them. With the team manager as a coach they beat Italy (84-68) led by forward Pavel Khrebtov ('93), who finished with 28 points (10/15 FG), 4 rebounds and 1 block. Youngster Viktor Kashin ('94) had 17 with 3/5 behind the arc and 2.06 center Artem Popov ('93) collected a double-double: 12 points, 12 boards and 1 block. At italian side forward Eric Lombardi ('93), from Biella, nailed 15 points (7/12 FG) and grabbed 2 rebounds, while Francesco Candussi ('94), top-10 in Eurohopes'94, had bad percentages: 9 points (4/12 FG), 7 boards and 2 assists.

 

In the other contest hosts beat Germany (74-64) even the job of Bogdan Radosavljevic ('93). The center ended with a 34 valoration, the best of the day, after 23 points (10/11 FG), 10 rebounds and 2 steals. Johannes Richter ('93) added 9 points (4/7 FG), with 6 rebounds and 1 assist. Who shined for Spain? Alex Suárez ('93), from DKV Joventut, nailed 14 points (2/3 threes) and pulled down 2 boards, while Diego Pérez ('93) added 12 and 4 rebounds in 14'. Guard Javier Marin ('94) scored 8 points with 3/6 FG.