Beşiktaş Cola Turka squeezed out a 90-88 victory over MP Trabzonspor on Friday to reach the Spor Toto Turkish Cup Final.

Right after Ersin Görkem hit the opening bucket for the Eagles, Ersen Görkem and Ali Karadeniz combined for 9 straight points that gave Medical Park Trabzonspor an early 9-2 lead. But Serhat Çetin brought Beşiktaş Cola Turka back to life with a three-pointer and then a layup by Ogilvy made it a two-point game, 9-7. From there on, both teams struggled to get to the baskets until Ali Karadeniz capped a late Trabzon spurt with a driving layup to help the burgundy and blue team carry a 22-19 edge into the second. 
Turnovers were the story for the Eagles at the start of the second quarter as Trabzonspor pushed the margin to six on a 3-point shot by Ersin Görkem. However, Beşiktaş Cola Turka was in no mood to let the game slip away and got consecutive jumpers from Chatman and Ogilvy to crawl within 25-23 after two minutes. While Trabzon struggled to maintain its supremacy, hot-handed Cevher Özer kept converting Serkan Erdoğan’s assists into points and knotted the game at 31-31 midway through the quarter. The Black Sea team took a timeout to talk things over but failed to stop Serkan Erdoğan from dishing out back-to-back assists. Nevertheless, thanks to a couple of Ali Karadeniz free-throws, Trabzonspor went into the locker room with a 2-point, 44-42, halftime advantage.
Mire Chatman rebounded his own miss for a put back to start the third quarter; Cevher Özer followed it with a fadeaway and Beşiktaş Cola Turka was back on top, 46-44. Goran Cakic and Igor Milosevic each made a layup to regain the lead for the burgundy and blue, only to see Marcelus Kemp connect from outside and keep the score tied at 55 with 5:07 left in the quarter. The remaining minutes saw Ali Karadeniz and Andrew Oglivy trading baskets as the teams failed to assert their dominance and entered the closing stages locked in a 63-63 tie. But Ali Karadeniz sank a three-pointer just before the buzzer and put Medical Park Trabzonspor up, 66-63, after three quarters of play.
At the start of fourth, an 18-footer tossed in by Hadi Özdemir stretched the lead to five, 68-63, but Serhat Çetin and Andrew Oglivy answered right back with a jumper of their own, which sliced the gap to 68-67 two minutes into the quarter. Despite a long trey by Aleksandr Rasiç, it didn’t take Beşiktaş Cola Turka too long to erase the deficit as 4 consecutive points from Michal Ignerski and Cevher Özer did the job. The seesaw battled continued deep into final frame with the Black Sea team taking a three-point lead, 79-76, on a Hadi Özdemir layup with 2:03 to play. Then Serkan Erdoğan hit a 3-point shot and a layup to pull the Eagles ahead, 84-81, and force a Trabzonspor timeout. Although Miloseviç leveled the score with a three-pointer from behind the arch, Ogilvy’s 12-foot fadeaway restored the Black and White’s lead at 86-84 with less than a minute showing on the clock. In the dying seconds, the men in burgundy and blue resorted to tactical fouls to keep their hopes for the final alive. Their tactic appeared to work when they crept within one point, 89-88, on a 3-pointer by Obasohan with 3 seconds remaining in regulation. But Mire Chatman’s free-throw turned the lights out on Trabzonspor as Beşiktaş Cola Turka walked away with a narrow 90-88 win that earned a ticket to the Turkish Cup Final. The final is to be played at Kayseri Kadir Has Sports Hall this Sunday.