Last Saturday afternoon, EVB Baros Men’s 1 emerged victorious in its first game of the new year in Seniors Second Division D. In a half-empty hall at Campus Woudestein, the Rotterdam student team found the visitors from Delft, who came back strongly after a poor start, quite a hard nut to crack. Baros was only able to pull ahead in the fourth quarter, which ultimately resulted in a final score of 55-44.
It promised to become an exciting game for the handful of spectators who had come out that day. The two teams had gone into the winter break with the same number of points (12) in the tournament ranking.
But while the rival teams may have looked the same on paper, they played a markedly different game in the earliest stages of the head-to-head. After an enthusiastic start, Baros immediately started working to gain a lead. Punch, on the other hand, seemed to still be struggling with the aftereffects of the holiday revelries. After putting in a poor first quarter, the Delft were 13-2 behind on the scoreboard.
Tie at half-time
In the second quarter, Punch was able to step up its game and catch up with the Rotterdam team. Baros had become sloppy, which helped their opponents to get back into the game. In fact, at one point, the visitors even managed to move out ahead with a four-point advantage. In the exciting conclusion of the second quarter, both teams seemed equal contenders, something that was also borne out by the 22-22 tie on the scoreboard.
And this game of give-and-take continued in the first part of the third quarter. After scoring a few three-pointers, Baros appeared to move out in front again, but Punch showed no signs of giving up, continuing to nip at the Rotterdammers’ heels. Nevertheless, as the game progressed, these efforts seemed to be asking too much of the Delft students, and the home team was able to slowly but surely increase its lead in the fourth and final quarter. Punch was unable to repeat the comeback it had made in the first half. The Delft students ultimately yielded with 55-44 on the board.
‘New system takes some getting used to’
Baros playmaker Mannes Bijlmakers, who is enrolled in a master programme at Delft University of Technology but lives in Rotterdam, was pleased with Baros’s victory over his fellow Delft students. Nevertheless, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with his team’s game: “As a game, it didn’t go too smoothly, it was all a bit sluggish. We still need to get used to the new system we’ve decided to play in. And Christmas didn’t help either,” he concludes.
