Black Frogs Schieren edged BBC East Side Pirates 65-62 in a tight championship-round opener, decided in the last minute. Coach Nigel Tolentino's side burst out 0-7 behind Nick Yan Marcel Kraus, who scored the first seven points and 11 in the opening stretch as FRO built the largest lead at 5-15. BEP steadied, but FRO still led 34-40 at halftime.
After the break, BEP chipped away and finally turned the game late. Trailing 51-54, they strung together an 8-0 run: Leo Carreira de Oliveira and Tristan Noël Fievez combined to flip it to 59-54. Carreira de Oliveira calmly knocked down three free throws in that phase, and Fievez added two key baskets. FRO answered, and the decisive sequence came from 62-58: Milo Reiser buried a three (62-61), Kraus hit the go-ahead layup (62-63) and Rick Marth (15) sealed it at 62-65. A BEP timeout in the 7th minute of the fourth quarter couldn't halt that 7-0 closing run.
Kraus (Season PPG: 13.78) set the tone and matched his season best with 27 points, repeatedly finding gaps in the lane. He had strong support from Mathis Kraus (Season PPG: 13.56) with 12, Marth's 12, and Reiser (Season PPG: 10.33) with 10, including the late triple. For BEP, Fievez (Season PPG: 16.00) also equaled his season high with 26 and was dominant after halftime. Yannis Pividor (Season PPG: 8.75) added 13 and Carreira de Oliveira (Season PPG: 11.14) and David Bemtgen (Season PPG: 5.57) 11 each.
Discipline swung at moments: BEP's Carreira de Oliveira committed two personal fouls in a row in the second quarter, while FRO's Dilson Eduardo Furtado picked up a quick P then P2 in the first.
The result mirrors FRO's earlier win over BEP this season (63-34), but this time the gap shrank to three. In the standings of the Phase finale, FRO open at 1-0 in 4th place, BEP start 0-1 in 5th. Momentum-wise, FRO have now won two in a row, while BEP slide to a four-game losing streak. Coach Thomas Diederich's Pirates showed resilience, but Tolentino's group executed the final possessions.
(AI generated)