Levski broke losing series, back to winning way

Levski came back to winning ways after two straight losses, one from Euroins Cherno More in NBL and the other one from Rilski Sportist in BIBL and defeated Sliven away 77-97. This was last test for The Blues before their game with champion Lukoil Academic this coming friday in Hristo Botev Hall. In Yambol Levski played without two of the team`s players - Marcus Hall and Vasil Evtimov.
 
The hosts started strong and took 10-0 lead. The play of the hosts wasn`t that good and for the first ten minutes they managed to score only 11 points compared to 28 for their visitors.
During the second quarter Sliven made a run 6-0 and managed to cut some of the deficit.
 
After 15 minutes of play the difference went down to 12 points. With good defense the hosts managed to keep themselves in the game. Both teams were exchanging baskets and to the end of the first half Levski took a 52-37 lead.
 
The third quarter started very strong for Levski and quickly took a 20-point lead. Sliven found it hard to make baskets at that point and only the good play of Todor Tenev and good shooting from the three point line by Lawrence Sharett kept Sliven from being embarassed. Near the end of the quarter the visitors played more relaxed and the hosts cut the deficit to 12, 57-69.
 
In the final quarter Sliven tried to come back in the game but only managed to cut it to 10. In the final minutes Titi Papazov let some of the reserves in play but Sliven didn`t succeed to cut more of their deficit and lost again.
 
The strongest for Levski in this game was Nikolay Varbanov who finished with 28 points and 14 rebounds, despite playing with 4 fouls for most of the time. Asen Velikov finished with 17 points while Stefan Georgiev also posted a double-double with 13 points and 12 rebounds for only 20 minutes on court.
 
For Sliven Todor Tenev scored 22 points while Tsvetomir Benchev added 13.