Caspian Wolves Take 2nd Place in Basketball Championship
31.01.2017
On January 24-29, 2017, Astrakhan State University received the home tour of the higher division “Southern” of the Association of Student Basketball.
The male team of ASU – the Caspian Wolves – competed with teams of the Atyrau University of Oil and Gas (Atyrau, Kazakhstan) and Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don, Russia).
The tour was quite difficult and emotional. Over the first two days, our team won their rivals from Atyrau.
On January 25, the Russian Students’ Day, there was a break between matches, so a competition between supporters – students of Astrakhan’s universities – took place: the contestants were to shoot a ball through a hoop for 30 secs. Two students – Oksana Saygutina from Astrakhan State University and Emil Muldashev from Astrakhan State Technical University – won the competition. They were awarded with prizes, which were handed by Mr. Alexey Chelyakov (Chairman of the Astrakhan Regional Branch of the Russian Student Sports Union) and Mr. Farkhad Sultanov (coach of the Caspian Wolves).
On Jan. 26-27, the two rivals of the Caspian Wolves competed with each other. The team from Rostov-on-Don lost no matches and thus took the 1st place in the tournament table.
On Jan. 28-29, the final games took place. The team of Southern Federal University had higher scores practically all the time, but our team did its best to catch up its rivals. The Caspian Wolves showed a good game; yet, its rivals’ skills and experience helped the team from Rostov-on-Don gain two victories – 89:79 and 78:64. “Our rivals were very strong, and these were worthy games! We just lacked self-confidence and experience”, Farkhad Sultanov said. As for Vladimir Pakholko, captain of the Rostov-on-Don’s team, he remarked that the Caspian Wolves performed excellently in both attacking and defending, they just needed to gain more experience; he thanked the Astrakhan party for a warmhearted reception of their guests.
Now the team of ASU takes the 2nd place in the tournament table.
On Feb. 06-08, the final tour is to take place in Krasnodar. The Caspian Wolves are to play three matches with local teams to claim for a prize.
