Sibenik and Partizan will remain the only teams that have defended the title in the WABA League, and the basketball players of Buducnost Bemax will long mourn the way they dropped the throne in the finals of the 18th edition of the regional competition.
Goran Boskovic's team was after Berovo the whole time; the Bulgarians had plus 15 points (43:28) in the 3rd quarter, but the Montenegrin side fought back.
They started to beat the opponents with Nikolic Babić, who 51 seconds before the end scored a 6:0 series for the first lead - 60:59. Sania Chong made the shift, and Jill Bart, 22 seconds before the end, missed the shot for the new lead. Snezana Aleksic hit two free throws for 63:60 with nine seconds to go, but it was only the beginning of the drama.
After Boskovic's time-out, Nikolina Dzebo scored, and the team started celebrating, but the refs showed that she stepped on the line, so the score was 62:63.
A foul was quickly made over Aleksic, who scored both free throws 2.9 seconds before the last buzzer.
The ball came to Babic, who tried to hit for three points with her left hand, but Teodora Dineva naively made a foul even when the time was running out.
The captain of Buducnost calmly hit the first two, but for the third, her hand started shaking, and the trophy went to Bulgaria for the second time. Recall, in 2007, the champion was CSKA from Sofia.
The girls from Podgorica missed a chance to remain in the 2nd place of the eternal list with three trophies, behind the undisputed Sibenik, who was champion five times.
Take a look here at the entire match YouTube
Text by Nikola Nikolic, on March 24th, 2019, read more at Vijesti
