Mornar Bar - KK Partizan 57:58 (ABA Liga, round 1)

The basketball season has finally started.

Brand new team, brand new hopes, Mihajlo Andrić has returned at long last after a very long pause and Novica Veličković stayed at Partizan.
Then the game started and it was a struggle. The home team was leading to 8:2, we missed out a lot of chances, or rather the Montenegrin team blocked the hell out of us.

12:2, then 14:4. KK Partizan was out of order... Hatcher got a technical, Andrić was fouled for the second time in the 7th minute. Even Veličković entering the court didn’t help. He scored though (14:6), but we still kept on collecting fouls. The quarter ended with 18:10.

Adin Vrabac

Just when the second quarter started, Ellis blocked Veličković twice in a row. This video here is just a teaser, they made it the same way once again.

We struggled. Mornar played it aggressive, in fact that was all. As for us, well... we didn’t. We played as if we were asleep, we tried to stop them with clenched teeth, no success (22:10). Then finally Marinković scored a 3-pointer (22:17), that woke up the team, a bit. Hatcher and Robinson equalized (24:24), we even took the lead with Hatcher’s free throw (24:26). We came back to life a bit, but it didn’t last long. Just 16 seconds before the end buzz Mornar took back the lead (28:27), that was the half-time result as well.

Stefan Pot with the ball

That very annoying something that was typical for the rest of the game started in the third quarter, this "ping-pong"-game, when one team leads, then within a few seconds the other takes the lead, and just a bit later the first team takes it back - and so on. The difference was max. 3-4 points always. There was struggling, there was fight, but there was barely any score. Both teams had very strong defense, but at the same time none of them had a convincing performance. Mornar was leading to 43:42 before the final quarter.

Andrić and Luković (55) try to block Mornar’s player. Robinson (5) is watching from the left, Vrabac (7) is wrestling with Waller

It was the same in the last part. Fight, struggle, sweat, then at 57:56 Ratkovica clashed so hard with the opponent under the backboard that he fell on the court and remained there. (Finally he could stand up and teetered off to the bench.) Then at the end Veličković settled the final score.

Highlights:

KK Mornar Bar: Jones (14), Krstić (3), B. Radunović (8), Vujošević, Čalić (2), Mijović (6), M. Radunović, Pantić, Dickerson (4), Ellis (5), Hadžibegović, Waller (15)

KK Partizan: Robinson (2), Ratkovica (7), Vrabac (2), Marinković (9), Veličković (8), Majstorović (5), Birčević (3), Koprivica, Andrić (3), Hatcher (11),  Pot (2), Luković (6)

League table will be brought tomorrow, there is one game left from this round.
Update: standings after 1 round
1. Budućnost 4 points*
2. Zadar 3 points*
3. CZ 2 points
4. Krka 2 points
5. Cibona 2 points
6. Mega Leks 2 points
7. Partizan 2 points
8. Union Olimpija 1 point
9. Mornar Bar 1 point
10. FMP 1 point
11. Cedevita 1 point
12. Igokea 1 point
13. Karpoš 1 point
14. MZT Skopje 1 point

Teams marked with * have already played round 2.

(photos: aba-liga.com)

VK Partizan - Mornar 5:6

We screwed it up. Okay, half the team is sick and/or injured. What is more, with this defeat we crawled back to the 5th place and if we don’t pick ourselves together for the last round on Sunday against POŠK, we can wave byebye to our chances to get to the Final Four.
Though we were leading at the beginning. It was 2:0 for us with the goals of Asanović and Subotić. Then something happened, because all of our attempts failed. We made a lot of mistakes and it always pays off.
So did it now. The opponent equalized in the last minute

don’t ask me how, I don’t even want to know

the first quarter ended with 2:2.
The second quarter could be awful. The guests seemed to hearten up, because they scored 3 goals, then rolled down the shutters and sent us evil grinnings, while we were struggling. The half-time standing was 2:5.
For the third quarter we came back to life. Most important was that we got no goals - the guests kept on hitting the crossbar -, yet we could score one (by Đorđe Lazić).

Reports say it was high time to do so, after we missed out five (!!!) chances.

For the last quarter Mornar got fed up with our fumbling. They jumped to 3:6 and it all looked to be very sad. Asanović scored two goals, but we had no time to equalize.

Mateja Asanović some time during the game

(photo: waterpolopartizan.rs)

At the moment the league table looks like this:

1. Jug Dubrovnik 48 points
2. Primorje 45 points
3. Jadran HN 39 points
4. Mladost 23 points
5. Partizan 21 points
6. Mornar 19 points
7. Radnički 13 points
8.  Vojvodina 12 points
9. POŠK 8 points

So, if we want to qualify to the Final Four, on one hand we must knock out POŠK tomorrow, also Mladost (4th place) must get defeated by Radnički. (Mladost’s goal difference is 146:146, ours is 142:126).

Mornar - VK Partizan 6:12 (Triglav Liga, Round 9)

This was the match of invalidated goals.

(screenshot)

In the first quarter Asanović scored first after a few attempts on both sides (0:1). After him Gogov also scored, but the referee invalidated his goal for unknown reasons. Even Radojević shot a goal, but referees whistled off that one as well. Instead of 0:3 the standing was still 0:1.
For our great luck our goalkeeper Rističević at the other side of the pool was as persistent as a concrete wall and saved all attempts of the home team.
Then Jakšić’s goal was valid at long last (0:2). At this point, almost at the end Croatians could score one (1:2), but Manojlović quickly threw a goal right before the buzz, as it’s always better to be safe than sorry. We finished the first quarter with 1:3.
In the second quarter we got a penalty shot. It followed a wrestling scene in front of the Croatian goal line, then all Average Fan could see was the referee whistling, Mornar’s head coach explaining something to him with big gestures, then the referee shows him the yellow card and waving for Partizan to throw a penalty shot. Excellent. Jakšić shot it and scored (1:4). Croatians started to attack continuously. They put our goalmouth under heavy pressure, but Rističević saved their attempts with a Buddha-expression. (Or our defense line blocked their shots.) They could still reduce the difference to 3:4, but Subotić scored as well, followed by Drašović. The home team also threw one goal, the first half ended with 4:6.
In the third quarter the referee again took a goal from us (Subotić threw it, the refere didn’t like it, nobody knows why), and then they even put the home team into double power play (aka they sent off two of our players at the same time).
But they couldn’t score to Rističević, even if we were two men less. Rističević himself was the Serbo-Hungarian defensive army of the Siege of Belgrade from 1456 against the Turkish Croatian team being in superior numbers power play. It was again amazign what Partizan’s goalkeeper made on this match. Referees put Croatians into power play time after time, but they couldn’t score from any. Yet Asanović did score (4:7), so did Lazić (4:8). The home team again scored only at the end of the quarter, the standing was 5:8 at the end of the third part.
In the last part Gogov scored (5:9) after almost two and a half minutes of wrestling. Then Jakšić (5:10), from power play.

Professor Jakšić teaches Croatians how to score from power play, bwahahahahaha

Mornar started to fall into pieces, as for us, we were not in a hurry at all. Rističević saved whenever it was needed, and even Asanović’s third personal foul (and being fouled out) didn’t mean any upheaval for Partizan. Then referees invalidated a Croatian goal as well. There were less then one and a half minutes left, when Lazić scored again (5:11). At this point the stream died for a few seconds, I just missed out the sixth Mornar-goal as well as Partizan’s 12th one. (Running through post-match statistics I think it was scored by Radojević, but correct me if I’m wrong.)
The hero of the game is Dimitrije Rističević, among goal scorers Nikola Jakšić with 3 goals. Mateja Asanović and Đorđe Lazić both scored 2-2 goals, the others (Marko Manojlović, Gavril Subotić, Radomir Drašović, Draško Gogov and Filip Radojević) added 1-1 goal to the victory.

League table will be brought later.

Mornar - VK Partizan 8:7 (Triglav League)

None of the teams could qualify earlier to the Final Four, so the match didn't have any significant stake.

Probably that's why none of the channels broadcasted it...

Mornar was on the lead for almost the whole time. They won the first quarter to 3:2, but we could equalize for the half-time to 4:4. In the third period the Split-based team sped up and increased the difference to 8:5. In the last quarter we scored 2 goals, they scored none, but even that wasn't enough for a draw.
The hero of the day was the goalkeeper here, too, Rističević had 10 (!) saves, keeping the team back from a bigger defeat. The most goals (2) was scored by Jakšić, the other goal shooters were Mandić, Subotić, Gogov, Manojlović and Stojanović.