Levski won the Cup of Bulgaria second straight time March 15, 2010
Levski defeated Rilski Sportist in the Final of this year Cup of Bulgaria and retained the trophy from the last year. “The Blues” won against its opponent 81-78, having control on the game for the whole time, but despite that the final minutes were very dramatic. At the end a turnaround didn’t happen and Levski won the Cup for 14th time in the history. For Rilski Sportist this was a historic moment as the team reached the final for first time but unfortunately for the Samokov team and its fans that came to “Diana” Hall in Yambol the team finished second. On Saturday Euroins Cherno more won the bronze medals defeating Balkan.
Levski started better the game and led 4-0 and 10-5. Rilski cut it to 9 but Levski made an 11-1 run and went up 21-10 and then 31-22 after the first quarter. In the second one Rilski Sportist managed to cut the deficit down to 4 points, 40-36. Levski answered with a three-pointer but Aleksandar Gruev scored and made the score 43-38 in favour of Levski after the first half.
In the third quarter Levski once again managed to pull away in a double digit lead, 55-45. The difference continued to be in this region in the next minutes and later it went up to 14, 69-55. In the closing seconds of the quarter Gruev scored a basket and was fouled making the free throw to make the score 69-58.
In the last quarter Rilski started closing the gap. It came down to three points with six minutes to go and later in the game with 88 seconds to play the gap was just a point, 77-76. Then Levski missed and Gruev scored a lay up to put Rilski ahead for first time in the game. Gjorgii Cekovski answered to put Levski ahead once again and in the next possession Simeon Naydenov missed a three-pointer. Bobby Frasor scored for Levski to make it a 3-point game and in the last second Travis Peterson missed the chance to tie the game and “The Blues” started celebrating.
For the winners very good game had Cekovski. He scored a lot of important baskets and finished with 22 points and 6 rebounds. Stanislav Slaveykov also played very good and added 15 points in 20 minutes as Aaron Harper and Donald Cole added 13 points apiece.
For Rilski Sportist the best player was the captain Aleksandar Gruev with 24 points and 7 assists. 14 points scored Rob Preston, 13 Bogdan Boev and 12 points Simeon Naydenov and Travis Peterson.
