Determined Belgium Fall To Lithuania

Gabriele Gutkauskaite and Lithuania clinched a spot at the EuroBasket Women 2013 Final Round in France with the win over Belgium

Gintare Petronyte signed off from this summer's EuroBasket Women 2013 Qualification Round in style and helped Lithuania beat winless Belgium.

In the last Group C game for the Baltic side, Petronyte had 19 points and 19 rebounds to fire the Lithuanians to a 61-53 victory.

Belgium came into the game riding a six-game losing streak but you wouldn't have known it by the way they traded blows with Algirdas Paulauskas' side.

The Belgians were especially good on defense, coming up with 18 steals and forcing group winners Lithuania to commit 25 turnovers.

The game was tied at 44-44 in the final minute of the third quarter before Kristina Vengryte buried a jumper for the Lithuanians.

That started a 10-1 that Vengryte capped with 6:17 to go in the last frame, leaving Lithuania with a 54-45 lead.

Anne-Sophie Strubbe gave Belgium hope when she buried a three-pointer with 3:13 to play to reduce the arrears to 54-50.

Petronyte answered with a jump shot to extend the advantage back to six and the home side pulled away for a 61-53 win.

Lithuania out-rebounded Belgium, 52-34.

Belgium have one more chance to win a game in the Qualification Round on Saturday when they host the Netherlands.

Lithuania will finish first in the group unless Slovakia, who won against the Netherlands on Wednesday, prevail at home in the last game against Slovenia. 

Quotes Lithuania vs. Belgium

Lithuania head coach Algirdas Paulauskas
"We are happy, because we achieved our goal - to qualify to Eurobasket Women 2013. Today we played without two key players - Sandra Linkevičienė and Eglė Šulčiūtė and it reflected on the court. The Belgian team is not better than us, but this game showed, that we need to improve our game a lot. The turnovers, we make, are similar to the one's players make in school. But I am optimistic - we have a lot to work on."

Lithuania forward Marina Solopova
"We are happy, because we qualified to Eurobasket Women 2013. It is a great achievement for our young team. I would like to apologise to our fans, because we did not show our best game today. But in the end, we won the game, so we are happy."

Belgium head coach Benny Mertens
"In the last quarter we missed five layups. It was the main difference between the teams in the end of the game. We made a great job on defence, but if you miss easy shots it becomes difficult to win. We have lost six games in a row and Lithuania is a good team. For us it was important to have a good game, but I could not say, that we hoped to win."

Belgian forward Emma Meesseman
"We did a pretty good job - the whole game, the difference between the Lithuanian and the Belgium team was pretty close. I think, that we lost the game because we had a lot of small errors, which resulted in turnovers. Lithuania is a more experienced team and their players solved their problems in the end of the game."