Zenit U21 defeats UNICS-2 twice
On November 2 and 3, the youth team of the blue-whites played two away games in Kazan. Roman Knyazev's squad achieved two victories in their first road trip of the 2024/25 season.
The opening match ended with a score of 46:71. The bue-white dominated each quarter and crushed their opponent. The standout player for Zenit U21 in this game was German Mushchinskiy, who scored 14 points and added one rebound, one steal and one assist to his stats.
Today’s game was more competitive. At halftime, the hosts led by 7 points. However, in the third quarter, the St. Petersburg team turned the game around and claimed the final stretch, finishing 77:80. The top scorer for Zenit in the second match was Dmitry Chekishev, who recorded 17 points, 7 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal.
German Mushchinskiy, Zenit U21 guard:
After playing Uralmash, we had some time to rest and correct our mistakes. But the long break was felt, and we started off poorly in the first game against UNICS, although we eventually found our rhythm, followed the game plan, and secured a confident win. The second game also began poorly, giving the opponent confidence and leading to a close fight until the end, where we ultimately came out stronger.
Roman Knyazev, Zenit U21 head coach:
These were two very different games. In the first, we played aggressively and forced the opponent into a lot of mistakes, which led to an easy win for us. In the second, it felt like we didn’t even show up. Our defense was nonexistent in the first half, and we couldn’t capitalize on fast breaks. I’m grateful to the players for responding to our halftime instructions and changing the course of the game. I’d also like to commend Timofey Komissarov for his individual defensive efforts at the end, which secured us the victory. We need to mature and avoid such lapses, and we’ll work on that moving forward.
The youth team will continue their road games next week, facing Pari Nizhny Novgorod Junior on November 6 and 7. Both games are scheduled to start at 20:00 St. Petersburg time.
