From July 13 to 15, the Latvian U15 girls ‘and boys’ teams (born in 2006) took part in international tournaments organized by Ramūna Šiškauskas in Kaunas.
In the girls’ tournament, the Latvians lost to the Lithuanian U15 team with 58:68, beat the German U15 team with 57:55 and lost to the Lithuanian U16 team with 53:64, which replaced the Czech U15 team that had not arrived at the last minute.
Latvian U15 national team head coach Ainārs Čukste:
Together with the three test matches in Poland, a very valuable practice came out after a season in which they were too few. The long downtime definitely affected the results. In other circumstances, there could be more victory. I was glad that with each game we took small steps forward in mutual understanding and game quality. Although still far from stable quality.
In the first game with the Lithuanian U15 national team in the first three quarters, with aggressive defense and pressing, we took the initiative in our hands and achieved an advantage of more than 10 points. However, we were very unlucky in the last ten minutes, when the opponents concentrated their defense in their penalty area, but we were unable to hit long shots from good positions. At one point we “broke”, we could not overcome the moment of failure. It succeeded in the next game with Germany, when we withstood the pressure of the opponents. On the last day, we took the initiative and leadership against the Lithuanian U16 national team in the third quarter, but “laid down” the breakthrough of the opponents.
Looking to the future, the team will definitely be strengthened by three girls who are preparing for the FIBA Challenger tournament in the U16 national team. There will also be players on the candidate list. It would be valuable to organize national team work and participation in women’s league games throughout the season. “
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