Serbia and Spain will play tomorrow at 6pm the big final of the U18 Division "A" European Championship, held in Wroclaw (Poland), after beating their rivals today in the semifinals. But two completely different contests. Serbians came back from a 16 points deficit to knock out Italy, while Spanish kids crashed Turkey (at half time they were already winning by 24 (40-16). Big names will face eachother: Nenad Miljenovic ('93) -at the pic- Jaime Fernández ('93), Vasilije Micic ('94), Daniel Diez ('93), Luka Mitrovic ('93), Alex Abrines ('93),... These two generations faced eachother two summers ago in Kaunas (Lithuania) during the U16 European Championship semifinals. In that game Spain won (75-88) -after earned the title- behind Fernández (20pt+4as+4st) and Álex Suárez ('93), with 18 and 3/4 threes. Diez added 12 (5/7 FG). All three are still in the team. Aleksandar Cvetkovic ('93), the main absence now (he played the U19 WC), had 24 with 4/5 threes. Miljenovic nailed 12 and pulled down 3 boards. But all these details don't mean anything now. Let's check what happened in today's journey.
In the first semifinal Italy made a great start, even Amedeo Della Valle ('93) still was injured, and during the third quarter they were winning by 16 points. But Miljenovic appeared to kill the game (61-67) and finish with 20 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists (19 in the second half and 6/6 FT in the last 25 seconds). Nikola Jankovic ('94) and Vasilije Micic ('94) added 11 apiece. At the losing effort Matteo Imbrò ('94) fought with 19 and 4/8 threes, while Amedeo Tessitori ('94) collected a double-double (11 points and 14 boards). In the other game Spain crashed Turkey (77-54) behind a crazy start, playing really attractive in offense and hard in defense (19-5 at the end of first quarter). Turkish prospects couldn't come back. Diez, from Real Madrid, had 16 points and 13 rebounds, while Abrines added 11 and 7. At the other side guard Ahmet Tuncer ('93) tallied 15 points and dished 4 assists. Talat Altunbey ('94) scored 10 with 5 rebounds.
In the classification round between the 5th and 8th final positions Lithuania beat Croatia (60-87) behind 6'10'' Arturas Gudaitis ('93): 27 points and 8 rebounds. The best croatian? Marko Ramljak ('93) with 16 and 8 rebounds. In the other contest Poland beat France (70-66) with a good job from Mateusz Ponitka ('93): 21 points and 10 rebounds. French Livio Jean-Charles ('93), from INSEP, had 18 points and 7 rebounds.
Finally, in the battle to avoid the relegation to Division "B" Greece defeated Czech Republic (78-59) behind Giannoulis Larentzakis ('93): 22 points and 10 rebounds. For Czechs Martin Kriz ('93) scored 20 and pulled down 9 boards. In the other game Ukraine beat Finland (52-75) led by Volodymyr Gerun ('94) with 23 points and 14 boards, while at the losing effort 6'11'' Joonas Caven ('93) had 11 and 3 boards. With these results Finland and Czech Republic go down.
Standings (relegation round): Ukraine (4-1), Greece (3-2), Czech Republic (2-3) and Finland (1-4).
Photo: FIBA Europe / Wojtek Figurski