July 26, 2010
KAVADARCI, Macedonia - Junior center Mairi Buchan (Stirlingshire, Scotland) scored a team-high 13 points and redshirt freshman guard Becca Allison (Edinburgh, Scotland) pulled down a team-best nine rebounds as the Great Britain National Team won its first Division B title Monday by edging Slovakia 47-46 at the U20 European Championships in Kavadarci, Macedonia.
Great Britain, which has only played Division B at the women's and men's U20 level since 2006, allowed just 14 points in the first half and held on in the second half to capture the crown. Both Great Britain and Slovakia will play next summer in Division A.
Great Britain jumped out to a 22-9 lead in the second quarter and the lead was still 32-20 early in the third quarter. Slovakia mounted a furious comeback and used a 6-0 run to pull ahead 44-43 with five minutes to play.
Great Britain's Mary Durojaye scored to make it 47-46 with 1:52 remaining and neither team scored the rest of the way with Slovakia having the last chance of the game but Veronika Cernakova missed a driving layup with four seconds left.
In earlier action, Great Britain topped Israel (72-65) in the quarterfinals before upending previously undefeated Portugal (59-40) in the semifinals.
Buchan ends the tournament as her teams leading scorer (10.7 ppg) and rebounder (7.7 rpg), while Allison dished out a team-high 1.7 assists per game and led Great Britain with 2.3 steals a contest.
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