Our Beşiktaş Cola Turka Women’s Basketball Team loses 77-48 to local rival Galatasaray at Ayhan Şahenk Sports Hall in the opening game of its TBBL semifinal playoff series.

After Şaziye banged home a 3-pointer to open the scoring in the first quarter, both teams had trouble finding their offensive rhythm and kept misfiring a long the way. But at the halfway mark, Galatasaray pulled ahead for the first time in the game on a pair of free-throws. The Black and White immediately responded with 3- pointer by Nilay and from that point on, clung to a slim lead until the closing stages. Nonetheless, Işıl stepped up in the dying seconds and knocked down back-to-back buckets to give Galatasaray, which was trailing up to moment, a 19-16 edge at the end of the opening quarter.
Our Ladies in Black and White allowed many of Galatasaray’s early turnovers to go unpunished. While the home team quickly got back on track, Beşiktaş continued to fire blanks deep into the quarter. As a result, they suddenly found themselves trailing by 10 points at 26-16 and scored their first second-quarter basket nearly 4 minutes into play. Beşiktaş Cola Turka looked in trouble and needed a timeout to talk things over. It appeared their new tactic paid off, as the Black and White found 5 consecutive points and brought the deficit back to reasonable levels to remain within striking distance. But Beşiktaş Cola Turka’s poor defense was still a major concern, as it struggled to contain hot-shooting Işıl, who kept pouring it in from allover the court. The local rivals closed out the second quarter on late run to take a comfortable 38-25 lead heading into the locker room at the half.
Holding a 13-point cushion at the break, Galatasaray started the second half with a string of unanswered points by Sophia to put the game out of reach. Managing only 8 points in over 5 minutes, Beşiktaş Cola Turka did everything to help the host team achieve its goal. The ladies in red and yellow did not hesitate to convert Beşiktaş’s turnovers into fast-break points and opened up a 20-point gap at 51-31 on an array of shots, both inside and out. The Lady Black and White tried desperately to trim the deficit with Şaziye and Lovelace, but Işıl And Sophia made sure that they got no closer than 20 points going into the final stanza. Galatasaray was up 61-41 after three quarters of play.
After Esra hit a 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter, the home team dominated the rest of the last quarter and never looked back in the game. While Galatasaray kept up pressure with back-to back threes, Beşiktaş Cola Turka showed no signs of life, either offensively or defensively. A lay-up by the star of the game, Işıl boosted the hosts’ margin to 74-44 and gave her club insurmountable 30-points lead with 2:00 remaining to play. Unable to penetrate inside, the hapless Black and White relied solely on outside shots and watched Galatasaray ease on a 77-48 win to take a 2-1 lead in the series.