Basketball in Plunge

Basketball appeared in Plunge in 1964. The first group of basketball players didn’t achieve any great victories. But still they were the foundators of basketball in our town. The leaders of the team in that time were Salys, Vosylius, Kiudulas and Leliūga. Salys had a good opportunity to join the national basketball team.

The next generation of players had much more success. They had won the second place of the LKL championship for several times. From the very beginning their trainer was G.Glikmanas ant the second trainer was Augenijus Jurgutis. The most distinguished players at that time were Midaugas Pranskevičius, Augenijus Vaškys, Dainius Miliūnas, Evaldas Jocys, Arūnas Drąsutis, Tomas Venckūnas; Martynas Slivskis all these players were from Plunge. But there were a lot of players from other towns and even other countries: Dainius Staugaitis from Mažeikiai, Igors Miglinieks from Latvia, Nerijus Zabarauskas Jonava, and Ramūnas Petraitis Kaunas.

From 1985 till 1993 they took part in LBC. At the beginning the name of the team was Linų Audiniai and later it was changed to Olimpas. 1996 the name of the team was again changed in to Zemaitijos Lokiai. And half of the plays were staged in Plunge and other half in Mažeikiai. From 1998 Plunge has no team taking part in LKL championship. Players from Olimpas now are playing in other teams like: Augenijus Vaškys and Midaugas Pranskevičius are playing in Poland, Dainius Miliūnas plays in Klaipėda, Evaldas Jocys Ramūnas Petraitis and Arūnas Drąsutis are playing in the USA students league. Plungės Olimpas had a lot of trainers like: Genadijus Glikmanas, Hendrikas Giedraitis, and Rimas Endrijaitis. All these years the president of the team was Vitas Klimas. Plunges Olimpas played in European cups. Two years they played in Krachas cup and one year in Saportos cup. The main sponsors of our team were Litoda and Mažeikių Nafta.

From 1994 till 1999 Plunge had another team that took part in the LKaL championship. The primal name was ŽŪM and after some years it was changed into Olimpas2.

The best players of this team were Alvydas Žukauskas now he is playing in Mažeikių Nafta team, Alvydas Jocys now he is in the USA, Remigijus Kasperavičius now he is playing in Klaipėdos Universitetas Laivytė team and Sigitas Kažukauskas now he is playing in Marijampole team. The highest award reached by this team was the 4th place in the LKaL. This team had a lot of trainers too they were Steponas Milašius, Valdas Šimkus and Genadijus Glikmanas. The main sponsor of this team was Žemaitijos Olimpas. In the present time Plunge has no team in the LKaL nor in LKL. But has a team in the LKbL. The team was formatted from the sports school players. The trainers of this team are Vaitkevičius and Glikmanas. Now this team is in the last place of the LKbL championship with only one win this year. The budget of this team is only 700LT this year and all the money is disjointed for the trips.

In the 80’s there was a women team in our town. The official name of this team was Plunges Odininkas. For some time this team was also trained by G.Glikmanas. Some players from that time are now working as trainers at the sports school.

Plunge has also two teams of young basketballers playing in Karuna championship.

The age is 11-13 years. These boys are playing very well and they are standing in the leading positions in their championships.

The boys who were born in 1984 now are playing in the first league of their old boys. And they are standing in the 5th place out of 8 teams. The boys who were born in 1982 are playing in the second league right, but this year they will go to the first league very easy I think. The boys who were born in 1983 this summer will play in the YOUTH GAMES. And their plans are to be in the top 5 in Lithuania.

Every year our district is having a nice basketball championship. A lot of teams are taking part in it. Last year there were 16 teams. Last year there were tow championships because the teams, which suffered the defeat, wanted to make the rematch and organized a new tournament. Which was named the Revenge CUP.

There are 7 basketball trainers in Plunge they are training 10 groups of young people.

Vitalijus Kovalionok