AE Glaukos Esperou AOPA defeated SK Ioannina 71-55 away from home and tied the series between them at 1-1 for the play-outs of the 1st Group of National League 2. The guard of the natives, Filippos Rokanas, spoke on the show ” Listen to what you did” of EOK WebRadio with Leonidas Pistiolis and Kostas Zafeiris. He said in detail:
For the victory over SK Ioannina: “It was a difficult game for sure because we were playing at home, but we made it look easy because we were determined. We entered from 1The minutely determined not to lose and drop a category, because the team’s course should not have been there, the circumstances brought it. We want to close the year by saving the team and keeping the pretenses”.
For the 1st game of the series: “At 1The match we didn’t put so much pressure on the defense, because we didn’t have completeness in terms of guards, Andreas Seretis and Vassilis Tzimis were missing. We didn’t have many solutions, as a result me and Panopoulos were forced to play from 38 minutes and we got tired, so we mightn’t exert that much pressure. Ioannina felt comfortable on our field, they also scored several three-pointers in the 1st half, as a result of which they found a rhythm and beat us in the end with Tsigenopoulos’ lay-up. Image changed to 2nd match, because from the 1st minute we pressured them all over the field, forcing them to make several mistakes and miss shots. That’s why we had a 10-point lead from the 1st quarter, which we kept and closed the game with a big win.”
On what they need to do to win Game 3: “Let’s enter from the beginning determined for victory and nothing else. To give what we have and what we don’t have, to give our best, to believe in each other and finish what we started in October. What we do consistently well is the defense, we concede the fewest points in our group and through that we find rhythm. If we keep Ioannina low, the right decisions will be made in the attack as well”.
On whether they had other aspirations at the start of the season: “We wanted to be in the top six and I think we might have finished close to 3rd-4th if things had gone our way. However, we cannot, but we are talking hypothetically. There were and are good teams, such as Prometheus 2014 and Achaia ’82, who rightfully finished in those positions. I think that our course, because there have been changes of players and coaches, was not so stable and there were various adjustments that had to be made”.
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