U16 Lions destroy Austria on their way to the Quarter-Finals

Our U16 Belgian Lions didn’t rest on their laurels in their final group game of the U16 European Championship (Div. B).

Despite already being qualified for the Quarter-Finals our youngsters came out swinging against the winless Austria team and pretty much decided the game in the first couple of minutes with an 11-0 run. The run never really stopped and after a 32-7 opening quarter they moved on to the 56-19 score at the half.

In the second half our youngsters took their foot off the gas as they easily rolled on to the 99-47 final score with every player racking up at least 13 minutes of playing time. Thijs De Ridder was again the main finisher with 18 pts, 9 rebs and also 3 stls & 2 blks in only 15 minutes of action. It’s another strong outing for the young forward who should be getting some looks for the All-Tournament team with his performances throughout the tournament so far.

In today’s game he was joined by Sander Bollen who came off the bench for his best performance of the tournament so far with the 11 pts & 11 rebs double-double. Samuel Swolfs again finished in double figures as well with 13 pts and so did Nathan Missia-Dio (12 pts & 6 rebs) and Maarten Vandenbossche (10 pts & 4 rebs) to give us 5 players in double-figures, making us the second highest scoring team of the tournament (behind Poland). While our solid teamplay, spearheaded by our guards Jo Van Buggenhout (4.8 apg), Jasper Unal (3.2 apg) and Sean Pouedet (4.6 apg), has put us at the top of the assists-chart as well, with 21 assists per game as a team, ahead of Bulgaria and Denmark.

Next up for our U16 Lions is the Quarter-Finals which will be played on Thursday. That game will be against either Denmark or Montenegro, depending on the result of the decisive match-up between these two, later this evening.