If you had read the outcome of the 96th Basketball Upper Austria Derby from the facial expressions and gestures of the two coaches, you would never have thought that Master Gmunden left the floor of the Wels Raiffeisen Arena as a proud 86:77 winner. Aleksi Koskinen, coach of the “basket hunter” from Lake Traunsee, never looked up. Not even a quick smile slipped from the meticulous Finnish worker who doesn’t need the limelight. “It was a tough job, luckily we did it successfully. Wels gave us problems and these points are important,” he said, referring to the table.
The Swans moved up to fourth place – the placement round of the top six, who move directly into the play-offs, is secured by four points. For the Welser Flyers, who are troubled by corona and injury, the situation looks less rosy, they are eighth. And yet hymns of praise gush out of the mouth of head coach Sebastian Waser.
“I’ve been there for around four years now, but I’ve never been so proud of my team,” said the 36-year-old enthusiastically about the team spirit. “We were knocked out from the 25th minute on, but we threw everything into the balance. It was a big fight. We were better in all respects, except on the rebound.”
A series of failures
The lead changed nine times, only in the finish did the pendulum swing in favor of the Swans, who played their advantage of size under the basket. Wels not only had to pretend captain Davor Lamesic (Long Covid) and Aleksandar Andjelkovic (end of the season due to hip surgery), the 2.13-meter man “Jimbo” Lull had to sign off with a mild corona disease, moreover Samuel Orf was eliminated in the 4th minute with an ankle injury. Normally you have absolutely no chance under such circumstances. But it wasn’t like that. “The Welser made life really difficult for us with their aggressiveness. It was an incredibly intense match,” said Gmundens US legionnaire Stephon Jelks, the “energizer” who achieved a so-called double-double, namely points (12) and rebounds ( 15) in the double-digit range.
The Swans extended their lead in the eternal derby record, they are now ahead with 69:27 wins. But there is not much time to savor this success, and things will continue in quick succession during the Christmas holidays. On Thursday (7 p.m.) the Gmundner team welcomed the Timberwolves, who sensationally won the Vienna Derby against BC Vienna 87:82 on Stefanitag. The Flyers appear in Traiskirchen with the bottom group that has just celebrated a victory – in Wels.
Source: Nachrichten
