The last day of the Basketball World School Championship in Poreč saw the duel of Croatian and Danish players for seventh place and the defeat of the women’s Croatian team against Hungary, also for seventh place. The world champions are the women’s team from Serbia and men’s team from Turkey
Seven games in seven days is an extremely tough tempo for even senior teams, let alone high school players. Every point had an added value. In such a tempo, Croatian players from the Third Gymnasium in Zagreb climbed their way up against Denmark from -12, coming to -3 in the final quarter, but could not do more, Jutarnji List reported on May 7, 2017.
The final 59:47 for Denmark was not a realistic show of the situation on the court, but a score that placed Croatia in eighth place in the world, a praiseworthy result.
The women’s team from the same school played Hungary for seventh place. They began quite well and led 11:10 after the first quarter. Then the Hungarian team upped their game, with the best Croatian player benched after a hit to the head, and Hungary advancing to a sizeable 28:14 lead at halftime and a final 48:22.
Players from the Dubrovnik gymnasium won against Ireland 58:46 to take the 29th position at this Championship. The women’s team from the Šibenik School of Economics ended in 25th place.
In the women’s competition, the Serbian team took on the Greeks. Serbia controlled the court from the first minute, while Greece, except for a short-lived comeback in the second quarter, did not manage to put up a strong fight and had to settle for the world silver at 52:71.
In the men’s final, Turkey and France were equal during the first quarter (17:14), but the Turks went on to show why they were the favourites from the beginning. A deeper bench, height advantage and individual quality were enough for them to go up to +15 in the second half and control the game for the final 76:47 and well deserved gold.
Bronze medals, in both categories, went to Finland. The women defeated Israel with 61:51, while the men defeated Germany with 46:43.
