BRATISLAVA, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The men's basketball team of Komarno was waiting for a win in the Slovak Basketball League since November 15 of last year.
After eight straight defeats, they managed to prevail 87-78 over Spisska Nova Ves - the team that started Komarnos negative series.
The team from the south of the country got its injury-plagued roster back together on Saturday, signed a couple of new players in the recent weeks and also hired a new coach.
All of their efforts are showing on the court and resulted in Komarno almost tying Spisska Nova Ves for eighth place in the standings, serving the team from the opposite end of Slovakia its fifth defeat in a row.
The latest addition to Komarno's roster, the 31-year-old Hungarian center Nebojsa Dukic proved useful with 13 points and three assists. Spisska Nova Ves is still waiting for its first away victory of the season.
The 20th round of SBL put the top four teams against each other. The almost unchallenged league leaders from Bratislava traveled to fourth-ranked Levice and were met with solid resistance from the home team.
The Patriots were leading the game by two points going into the last period but the reigning champions from Bratislava showed their full potential, erased the opponents' lead with great three-point shooting (converting on a total of 13 attempts) and dominated the final period 26-9 to put the game away at 92-77.
It was Levice's fourth consecutive match with a solid start but unsuccessful finish. Bratislava's American guard Kenney Funderburk led the scoring with 27 points, four rebounds, and three assists, helping bring the eighth straight victory for the team from Slovakia's capital, 16th overall.
Elsewhere, second-ranked Lucenec put on a straight-forward performance against the third-placed Prievidza, leading from start to finish in a less-close-than-expected 86-66 victory.
Lucenec started the match with vigor, building a 20-point lead that lasted until the final buzzer. Prievidza's experienced Serbian center Nikola Gacesa returned to the roster after an unexpected trip home, scoring 14 points and adding five rebounds, but failed to lead his team to victory. Lucenec, on the other hand, stretched its winning streak to four, strengthening its second place in the rankings.
In the north of the country, the players of Svit succeeded in putting an end to their four-game losing streak, triumphing over Handlova 72-64 in a close battle between two teams from the lower half of the league standings.
Svit had a slower start but rallied in the second and third quarters which resulted in a sufficient lead that the visitors failed to cut despite their final efforts, led by their center Aleksandar Radukic and his double-double for 17 points and 11 rebounds. Handlova failed to get into the right scoring mode after going 20 days without a league match.
