By Vytautas Kaminskas
One more week passed in the SEB BBL and we can see some unexpected performances. Ehitustooriist won once more this weekend and, surprisingly, standing alone in the Final Four area just after the favorites. But this shouldn't make them calm down because all three teams from Lithuania - Neptunas, Siauliai and Sakalai, and Barons Riga as well will all be looking to steal the spot from the Tallinn team.
Leader Zalgiris, as all the other lithuanian teams, didn't play this weekend because of the All-Stars day they had on Saturday. Coming next week - Ventspils hosts Lietuvos rytas to decide directly the second place holder.
Ventspils got another strong and important win on Thursday in Klaipeda, beating Neptunas 79-69. The game was tight but Ventspils played successfully going closer to the end and won.
Brent Wright scored 20 and Bruno Petersons added 14 for the winners. Grant, as usually, was the leader on Neptunas - 15 points and 11 rebounds. It should be noticed that both teams had very bad three-point percentages, and 4 Ventspils players didn't finish the game because of fouling out.
TU/Rock suffered a very bad home loss against wild Barons 93-103. With only 8 players, Barons were able to play at very high tempo and scored 34 points during the last quarter to secure an important win.
Marius Janisius was simply unstoppable - 33 points, 8 rebounds and happy Barons management. Brunins had 22.
Another lithuanian Augenijus Vaskys was the best on the other side - 23 points and 8 rebounds. Vallo Allingu scored 21.
Lietuvos rytas, which was having problems to collect a squad lately, won a local battle, beating Siauliai on road 80-72.
5 Rytas players scored 10 or 11 points and that may have been the key for their win. Siauliai was always close but didn't manage to surprise in the crutual minutes.
Cepulis and Urbonas scored 13 each for Siauliai.
Ehitustooriist recovered after a shmeful home loss for Zalgiris by beating Valmieras Pienas 73-58 on Saturday. Ehitus controled the second half a played great defense.
Newbie Howard Frier scored 16. Among other scorers, Nathan Mielke achieved a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds.
Stewart Demond was impressive in Valmiera's team - 20 points and 7 rebounds.
However, next day Valmiera also had a revenge, beating no other than TU/Rock in Tartu 86-79 to leave them again alone on bottom of the table. Rock is suffering huge crisis lately and the team has been struggling for quite a long time already.
Demond was perfect again with 22 for Valmiera.
The hosts got 13 points each from Vaskys and Rannula.
1.3.2005
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