Amicale Steesel controlled the return game against Nitia Bettembourg, winning 42-21 and turning around the earlier 50-46 loss between the same teams in this phase. The result lifted AMI one place to 5th, while NIT remained 4th.
Coach Alexandra Lamesch's team set the tone early. AMI opened 5-0, then after NIT had cut it to 5-4, Steesel answered with 8 straight points to close the first quarter at 13-6. The second period brought another push through Birgul Derya Tasoluk (Season PPG: 8.00), who scored 5 points in the quarter, and AMI led 17-6. NIT reacted with a 5-0 run, driven by Adèle Emma Schmidt from France (Season PPG: 6.00) and Nadine Kabbah (Season PPG: 5.06), but Steesel still went into halftime up 21-11.
The decisive stretch came after the break. AMI moved from 21-11 to 27-11 with 6 unanswered points, with 12-year-old Eva Silva Dinis from Portugal (Season PPG: 3.88) and Marlene Beauloye (Season PPG: 9.31) leading that burst. Schmidt then kept NIT alive almost alone, scoring 6 points in a row to bring it back to 27-17 at the end of the third.
NIT reduced the gap to 29-21 in the fourth, but that was the last away scoring. AMI finished on a 13-0 run, their best sequence of the afternoon, and stretched the margin to a game-high 21 points. Tasoluk finished with 12 points, Beauloye and Liz Adam (Season PPG: 5.31) added 10 each, and Silva Dinis had 8. For NIT, Schmidt scored 12 of the team's 21 points. An important factor was the quiet game of Chiara Annie Jeanne Terazzi (Season PPG: 11.94), held scoreless and limited by four fouls. AMI also stopped a five-game losing streak, while NIT's skid reached five games.
(AI generated)