POSTED BY: Eurobasket Center
The players from JS Vallee-du-tir wanted to close the basketball season in New Caledonia on a high note. On the wings of their National Team reps, Stephane Saminadin, Benoit Weber and Yann Mathelon, they recorded a 81-51 win over AS6km. JSVDT will now focus on the Pacific Champions Cup against AS Aorai.
The biggest deception of this Caledonia Cup was the Mont-Dore. The Territorial runner-up was eliminated in the first round by AS6km. "We lost two finals against Vallee-du-Tir, in South Province and in Territorial. After these two losses, the guys were not motivated, something was broken" said one of the MDBC coaches.
AS6km had high expectations for this final unfortunatly, two of its players were not able to play due to elligibility rules. After this legal issue, both teams started the game with a lot of tensions and fouls. At the end of the first quarter, the score was a low 12-8 for JSVDT and three personal fouls for Fabrice Chaliot (198-F/C-76) who spent the entire second quarter on the bench. But his teamates did a great job and reached half-time on a 35-20 lead thanks to Yann Mathelon (19pts), Stephane Saminadin (18pts) and Benoit Weber (16pts). The second half was similar to the first one and Vallee-du-tir dominated a tired AS6km squad. Ben Hnawia was the leading scorer for AS6km with 15pts while Jean-Jacques Taufana netted 11pts and 2006 Oceania All-Star Ludovic Souque added 5pts.
"People tried hard to prevent us from playing this final with our full-team" said AS6km coach Jean-Marc Delaveuve. "But despite that, the Boys did a good job. It's true that JSVDT is a great team but during the year we were the only ones able to bother them. Each time they only won by 2 or 3 points when we were with all our players. That was not the case today and two of our best players watched the game from the sideline. The most disapointing thing is to see our youngsters upset by this issue and who decided to leave the game."
"This is great win for us" said on the other hand, Eric Saminadin, coach of JSVDT. "We were mercyless and this win is somehow too easy. Everything was not perfect but even the good teams and the good players sometimes experienced some difficulties. This game was a good preparation for our game against Aorai because we really want to beat them to play the French Cup. And against the Tahiti champion, we will play on our court."
Semifinals:
AS 6km - AO Nepoui: 94-61
JS Vallee-du-tir - SS Independente: 77-64
Final:
JS Vallee-du-tir - AS 6km: 81-51
JSVDT:
Yann Mathelon 19pts
Stephane Saminadin 18pts
Benoit Weber 16pts
Fabrice Chaliot 9pts
Benjamin Gutte 7pts
Gerard Girier-Dufournier 6pts
Jean-Claude Chaliot 4pts
Jean-Claude Fuller 2pts
AS6km:
Ben Hnawia 15pts
Jean-Jacques Taufana 11pts
Laurent Bernière 10pts
Nicolas Hnawia 8pts
Ludovic Souque 5pts
Abdel 2pts
