Hiroshima goes back-to-back against Thirdy Ravena’s San-en

The Hiroshima Dragonflies repeated over Thirdy Ravena and the San-en NeoPhoenix as they came away with an 84-72 victory in the Japan Professional Basketball League (B.League) on Sunday at the Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall.

The Dragonflies, who took the first matchup between the two teams, 76-67, on Saturday, improved to 5-1 for the season while knocking down the NeoPhoenix to 2-4.

Hiroshima’s Naoto Tsuji led all scorers with 28 points while Ryo Terashima added 18 markers.

Ravena finished with 12 points, two rebounds, one assist and two steals. He scored seven of his team’s 17 points in the fourth quarter, but that wasn’t enough in a period where they went scoreless for a six-minute stretch.

San-en was led by Elias Harris, who posted 19 points.

The NeoPhoenix opened up a double-digit lead, 29-19, in the second period after rattling off six unanswered points. Ravena kicked off that run with a steal that he turned into transition points and he capped it with an assist to teammate Keishi Matsuwaki.

But the Dragonflies made short work of that difference, battling back to within two, 38-36, at the halftime break after a 13-4 run.

In the second half, Hiroshima bridged the third and fourth periods with a 17-1 blast behind Terashima and Charles Jackson, who combined to score 15 of those points. That gave them a double-digit lead of their own at 70-55 with six minutes left in the game.

Ravena tried his best to keep his team in it, hitting a jumper at the 5:41 mark for San-en’s first points of the fourth quarter, 70-57. He’d follow it up with a three-pointer less than a minute later that got them back to within 10, 71-61.

They would come as close as seven after Thirdy hit on a fastbreak bucket, 71-64, after forcing a Hiroshima turnover.

However, Hiroshima responded with big three-pointers from Tsuji and Nick Mayo to open the lead back up to 11, 79-68, and all but put it away.

San-en returns to action on October 23, when they take on the Ibaraki Robots.

—JMB, GMA News