Delas named to the U-18 All-Tournament Team

Croatia U-18s suffered three defeats at the annual U-18 tournament in Onil, Spain. Coach Vlado Vanjak faced many problems as his team traveled to Spain without three cornerstone players (Leon Radosevic, Toni Prostran and Tomislav Zubcic), while five more got injured during the tournament. Split’s Mario Delas was named to the All-Tournament Team.

“This tournament was a test for potential candidates”, said Vanjak afterwards. “We were missing some key players who were either injured or stayed with their clubs and I wanted to try out the other guys. This will help me get the real picture by June.”

Sven Smajlagic was injured in the opening overtime loss to Turkey, while Robert Rikic, Danijel Popovic, Goran Fodor and Ivan Kovac got injured during Game 2 vs. Spain. Croatia was down to just seven players for the third-placed showdown with Germany and fell short after erasing an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

Results:
Spain – Germany 82-75
Croatia – Turkey 70-77 OT (64-64)

Turkey – Germany 81-64
Spain – Croatia 98-83

Spain – Turkey 76-62
Croatia – Germany 64-77
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