Greece sealed their place in next year's EuroBasket Women in Riga, Latvia, with a 76-65 victory at Bulgaria on Wednesday evening.

The Greeks improved to 4-1 with a game against third-place Belgium (2-3) remaining.

Victory in that contest would assure Greece of a first-place finish in Group D ahead of Serbia, whose victory over the Belgians on Wednesday night has given them a 3-2 record.

Styliani Kaltsidou led a terrific team effort by the Greeks with 19 points and 10 rebounds against the Bulgarians.

Greece had an 11-point lead in the third quarter cut to just five (51-46) by the end of the frame but the Bulgarians got no closer over the final 10 minutes.

The Greeks killed Bulgaria with their three-point shooting, hitting 12 of 18 (66.7%) on the night.

Kaltsidou was particularly effective from long range, making four of six while Dimitra Kalentzou was also a perfect three of three.

Bulgaria hurt themselves with a four of 20 effort from behind the arc, and by making just 19 of 28 at the free throw line.

 

 

Nikolay Boroukov, Bulgaria coach:

"I am very disappointed. I can't explain the behavior of some of my players. It seems these are our capabilities. Our loss is logical, Greece are better than us. My goal was to build a younger team, but it looks like some of the girls are not ready. The Greece team had great percentages from the three-point area. We worked special systems against their
game, but they made everything they tried."

Kostas Missas, Greece coach:

"This game was very important for us after the loss against Serbia. It is very important that we won and we made it to the finals of EuroBasket 2009. We worked especially in our preparation to be ready for the Bulgarian's system of playing and we succeeded. We had some problems with the defense and rebounds in the first half, but we made successful adjustments in the second. Bulgaria has six very strong players, but we knew, they lack depth in their bench, so we used this and pressed them the entire game."