Tenerife basketball side’s purple patch continues with European win

High-flying La Laguna Tenerife continued their unblemished record in this year’s Basketball Champions League (BCL) with a deserved 81-71 win over fellow-Spaniards Manresa last night at the Santiago Martín Arena.

The team ended the Top 16 group stage with a perfect record of six wins – twelve in all this year in the competition – and are now many pundits’ favourites to lift the trophy. Combined with results elsewhere, the win also eliminated Manresa, who could have been a tough opponent in the later knockout stages.

Despite the absences through injury of key players Fitipaldo and Guerra and not being able to rely on the evergreen Marcelinho Huertas, who was rested for last night’s game, the islanders negotiated what on paper looked to be a difficult task against the Catalan side. New signing Henri Drell, an Estonia international, showed why head coach Txus Vidorreta has brought him in for the business end of the season with an impressive performance which saw him score 13 points and secure 10 rebounds.

La Laguna Tenerife are enjoying a magnificent season in Spain’s ACB league, widely considered the second toughest in the world after the NBA. They currently lie second, just one win behind Real Madrid, and ahead of bigger-budget sides such as Barcelona, Valencia and Unicaja.

The Canaries’ other team in the ACB, Gran Canaria, lie eighth with ten games to go and remain hopeful of making the end of season playoffs.  The Las Palmas outfit lost last night against Turkish opponents Bahcesehir in the first leg of the semifinal of the Eurocup and need to overturn an eight point deficit (74-66) in the return leg on Friday if they are to progress to the final.

Photo: www.championsleague.basketball