The Belgian Cats won their second friendly game yesterday against Finland. After the brillant succes against Netherlands, it was another convincing victory 79-53 against the Finse team. Emma Meesseman scored 17 points to led the team. Kim Mestdagh was another player to score in double figures with 13 points. Kim Mestdagh (13 points) and Sofie Hendrickx as well, with 12 points and 8 rebounds for the captain of the Belgian Cats. Jana Raman contributed to the victory grabbing 9 rebounds.
After a great start, Belgium raced out to an early 16-2 lead, and 20-12 after the first quarter. Finland did manage to stay in the game, mainly due to a 9/18 at 3 points shooting during all the game. After a 37-26 halftime score, Belgium never looked back and continued to expand the lead. After 4 minutes in the second half, the gap between Belgium and Finland growed up to 22 in favor of the Belgian Cats.
With all 12 players getting playtime – only Serena-Lynn Geldof and An-Katrien Nauwelaers were not on the list of the match -, coach Mestdagh got a lot of chances to test out different line-ups in preparation of the qualification game against Belarus on November 25th. He will continue to do that in the upcoming games against Finland again this Saturday (18:00) in Namur.
Belgium – Finland 79-53
120-12/17-14/28-18/14-9
Belgium: 22/40 à 2pts, 6/20 à 3pts, 17/21 LF, 41 rbds, 16 assists, 20 TO, 15 f. Linskens 2, K. Mestdagh 13 (2×3), Delaere 2, Hendrickx 12 (8 rbds), Carpréaux 6, N. Mayombo 6, Meesseman 17, Raman 3 (9 rbds), Ben Abdelkader 2, H. Mestdagh 5 (1×3), Gaspar 2, Vanloo 9 (3×3)
BOX SCORE
Headcoach Philip Mestdagh underlines it once more, « when we play our team-game, we are very strong. We need to be aware of this. The Netherlands and Finland each play a different type of game. We don’t like the static game that much, and when we get to play uptempo, going for fast breaks out of a strong defense, we’re very pleased with that. Against Finland, we rotated players a lot. After all, we’re still in our preparation phase. Against Belarus, we will still rotate, but everyone needs to be more efficient. We still need to work on our rebounding; this is not a question of being big or small, but just of the desire to go get the ball. We need to focus on this point, especially against teams like Belarus. »
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