The Irish U16 girls team have been drawn with the Ukraine and Romania in round two of the 2013 U16 European Championships in Portugal. The draw comes following the completion a turbulent first round of their European Championships which saw them fall to heavyweights Germany, Portugal and Denmark. The team must recover quickly from their opening losses as they embark on phase two of the competition and compete for places 9th to 17th over the coming days. First up will be Romania on Wednesday (August 7th) at 3.30pm where they will have to overcome one of the championships top inside defensive players in Andreea Arsulesi who ranks second overall in the tournament in blocked shots, recording 2.3 per game. The 5ft 10inch Romanian has also been notching an impressive 10 points and 9.7 rebounds per game so far. Romania’s group stages saw them suffer a similar fate to Ireland as they lost all three games against England, Finland and Luxembourg. Following that tie with Romania, Ireland will face Ukraine at the same time on Thursday. Again they will face one of the premier inside players in the tournament as they come up against 5ft 9 inch Olga Yatskovets, who with 17.5 points per game ranks as the third top scorer in the championship. Her 16.5 rebounds has also seen her rack up the most rebounds of any player in the championship. Ukraine were unlucky to not progress to the top eight and will be favourites to top this group of three. Their opening round of play saw them defeat Norway and Switzerland. However, losses to Belarus and Serbia meant they were relegated to competing for 9th to 17th. Ireland will hope that the worst of their losses are over after heavy defeats in the first round. Despite the losses, there have been a number of outstanding displays by the girls in green with Kelly Diggin recording a double double of 11 points and 11 rebounds versus Denmark, while Sarah Kenny led all Irish scorers in their opener with an impressive 12 points. There was also a top scoring display from Olivia Dupuy who is averaging 9.3 points per game overall.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 08:56:35 +0000
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