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The first RGBL season ended with the game for third place and, of course, the grand final. Before the battles on the court started, the MVP of the regular season was awarded to Ipswich “Meru” representative Arnas Maziliauskas.
Ipswich “Meru” and Kings Lynn “Wolfs” teams met in the game for 3rd place. From the first minutes, the court was dominated by fast basketball, and the players were simply enjoying themselves. At the start of the game “Wolfs” were still able to keep up with the pace offered by Meru and the score remained close. But towards the end of quarter Ipswich representatives made a run and led 31-20. “Wolfs” were hit even harder in the second quarter, when the opponents simply bombarded them with accurate 3 point shots and turned all their mistakes into effective fast break attacks. The result after two quarters was 62:30 and it did not raise any doubts about the outcome of the game.
The game evened out a bit after the long break, but “Meru” kept the advantage gained in the first half of the game. Although “Wolfs” managed to win the last quarter 23:20, the final result on the scoreboard showed a more than assured victory of “Meru” 102:69. They were awarded with bronze medals and a trophy and “Wolfs” took home the trophy for the 4th place.
“Meru”: G.Pakalniškis 29 points, A.Maziliauskas 21 points.
“Wolfs”: H.Petrauskas 20 points, L.Rimdžius 14 points.
The culmination of the evening was the grand final, where the South Lincs “Dragons” and Peterborough “Tauras” teams met. In the regular season both games between these teams were very intense and the same was expected in the final. The beginning of the game was nervous, the teams often exchanged missed shots and mistakes. “Tauras” was the first to take the lead, but soon “Dragons” began to catch up and after the first quarter they led with the result 15:13. Peterborough representatives struggled in the offence and couldn’t score points during the second quarter, meanwhile “Dragons” used this opportunity to extend their lead and the result at half time was 39:27.
After the break time the game evened out, “Tauras” tried to catch up, but “Dragons” kept finding an answer to every successful attack of the opponents. “Tauras” won the third quarter by 2 points but the distance between the teams remained in double digits. The last quarter started with several successful attacks by “Dragons” and it seemed that the opponent had already given up, as the teams were separated by 16 points. However, after a time out, “Tauras” went all in, hit several difficult 3 point shots and began to decrease the opponents’ advantage with every minute, until finally only 4 points separated the teams. “Dragons” did not get lost, called a time out, after which they managed to organize several successful attacks and the final score 75:66 announced that the South Lincs “Dragons” team became the winners of the first ever RGBL season!
The champions were awarded with a £500 cheque, golden medals and a winners trophy. The MVP of the finals was E.Jurčiukonis, who scored 23 points.
“Dragons”: T.Zobiela 24 points, E.Jurčiukonis 23 points.
“Tauras”: V.Obrikas 16 points, T.Myrovas and A.Račickas 11 points each.