The Medway Park Crusaders hoped to reverse their recent fortunes against Edmonton Storm, but a nightmare first quarter and foul trouble late in the game handed the hosts an 84-74 victory.

Neither of the teams could get much going early in the game as the inside defence forced both teams to shoot from the outside and shots didn’t fall. After five minutes of play the score was tied at seven, but as Crusaders Canadian star Brad Smith headed to the bench with his second early foul the Edmonton offence got going. As the Crusaders outside shooting still faltered Edmonton started driving to the basket and drawing fouls on the way to a 14-0 run that brought them up 21-7 after the first quarter.

The second quarter started with James Harris finally hitting a three pointer for Crusaders and for the next five minutes Harris appeared to be unable to miss, hitting four three pointers. Unfortunately Crusaders still had to rely on outside shots as Brad Smith was called for a foul and subsequent technical foul, sitting him on the bench with four personal fouls.

Edmonton used the opportunity to extend their lead from 30-20 to 36-20, before the JP Dimandja and Jeff Wadey got Crusaders back on the scoreboard. The Crusaders shooters hit another four three pointers before halftime, taking their quarter score to 30 points, but as they still weren’t able to stop the Storm scoring, the huge scoring total didn’t make a difference and the Medway team still found themselves down 14, 51-57.

The second half was very different than the first, as Crusaders defence finally kicked in. Over the first 16 minutes of the third and fourth quarter the Storm was held to only 13 points, as the Crusaders aggressive man-to-man defence greatly limited their looks at the basket.

Offensively Crusaders struggled a bit early, but as they chanced bringing Brad Smith back in despite his four fouls, offence started clicking, as the guards kept finding him on the inside he had 12 points in five minutes, pulling Crusaders within two points, 61-59.

Disaster then hit, as Smith got his fifth and final foul, shortly followed by the fifth foul to Crusaders’ only other big man JP Dimandja. For a couple of minutes Crusaders looked like they might still pull it off, and they evened the game at 64 apiece as Irving and Lyons hit layups. The inside defence struggled without the big men, however, and Storm slowly build a lead. With two minutes to go Crusaders were still within three points, 72-69, but Storm star Tayo Odulaja promptly hit a three pointer to extend the lead to six, and over the last two minutes Storm slowly pulled away for the 84-74 victory.

After the game Crusaders head coach Mads Olesen was at a loss for words: “We just don’t seem to be able to string 40 minutes of good basketball together. We are very good when we’re good, and very bad when we’re bad. We need to raise out level of play to add some consistency”.

Match Details

Date Played: Saturday, 31-October-2009

Home Team: Edmonton Storm 84

Away Team: Medway Park Crusaders 74

Venue: Edmonton Leisure Centre

Scores:

Leading Scorers:

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