Our Beşiktaş Cola Turka Women’s Basketball Team grabbed a (80-67) victory over the visiting Mersin Büyükşehir Belediyesi at the 5th week of TBBL.

Starting the game with Şebnem Kimyacıoğlu, Esmeral Tunçluer, Lovelace, Yasemin Horasan and Sariye Gökçe first five, Beşiktaş Cola Turka Women’s Baketball team didn’t look too impressive during the early minutes of the game. Visiting side of Mersin Büyükşehir Belediyesi went in front and stayed in front until the 5th minute thanks to the baskets of Gülşah Akkaya. However after this point they were unable to stop the points of Lovelace and Sariye that changed score in favor of our Black & Whites (12-10). Nevertheless, consecutive points by Gülşah and Müjde brought back the lead to our opponent who wrapped up the period (21-16) in front.
In the second period our ladies could not establish an effective play under their own rim and gave away most of the critical rebounds. Mersin took advantage of the defensive mistakes of our Black&Whites and converted their offensive rebounds into valuable points. The visiting side entered the 14th minute with a lead of 26-22 thanks to its powerful defensive performance that did not allow any baskets for Beşiktaş Cola Turka. Mersin increased its advantage to 6 points in the last minute but our ladies found 4 extra points in the last 15 seconds and reduced the point gap to 2. The first half was completed in favor of visiting Mersin with a score of 36-34.    
In the early period of the second half both teams exchanged baskets and our Women’s Basketball Team eventually started to gain the control of the game which took them in front after 4 minutes. Additional scoring of Lovelace made the score (43-40) in favor of Beşiktaş in the 25th minute while our team reduced its defensive mistakes to the minimum. However the visiting side responded with the baskets from the painted area and gained back the lead with an effective under the rim performance in the last two minutes of the period. Teams entered the last minute with score of 48-47 in favor of Mersin. The impressive offensive play of Mersin gave them an extra 7 points and they were leading (54-47) at the end of the third period.   
The aggressive defensive play of Mersin was quite effective for stopping our scorers Yasemin and Lovelace under their own baskets throughout the game. Not being able to get points from the inside our Black &Whites were forced to take outside shots for points while our opponent successfully converted their fast-brake chances. The consecutive points by Gülşah and Müjde gave an 8 point advantage to Mersin at 32nd minute of the game (56-48). However from that point on our ladies started a rally to reduce the point gap and did not face much resistance for finding baskets. This positive performance made the score (65-64) in the 37th minute. The final 2 minutes of the game was a virtual thriller and when Mersin was leading 67-66, the three-pointer by Lovelace gave the lead to Beşiktaş Cola Turka for good. This critical basket gave Black &Whites a deep breath since they were trailing their opponents most of the game. Starting the last minute with an advantageous score of 75-67, our ladies finally found their original rhythm at final stages of the game. Finding back to back baskets they won this hard fought game (80-67) after coming from behind.    
The top scorer of the game was Stacey Lovelace with 30 points. The other scorers from  Beşiktaş were Yasemin Horasan (19), Şebnem Kimyacıoğlu (17), Sariye Gökçe (7), Nazlı Güler (3), Esra Erden (3) and Esmeral Tunçluer (1).