The Body and Mind Kent Crusaders registered their fist victory in this years Patron’s Cup overcoming Plymouth Raiders II 81 points to 67. After the game coach Mads Olesen highlighted team offence and winning the rebounding battle (50-31) as keys to the win, “It was great to get a win behind the things we have been working hard on: Defence and rebounding. We’ll look to build on this next week against Plymouth Marjon Cannons.”

Both teams started the game well and neither side lead by more than four points in the opening quarter, as the scores were level at the end of the first period 18-18. With 6 points in the opening quarter Crusaders’ Julian Naci showed what was to come in his biggest game for Crusaders to date (20 points, 9 rebounds).

Crusaders started the second quarter strongly behind some physical defence holding Plymouth to just 5 points in the opening 7 minutes. Kent went on a 19-5 run during this period with captain Pete Ayling running in 8 fast break points and Robbie Parker also hitting some tough shots, scoring 9 points. At this point the Crusaders relaxed a little, and allowed Plymouth to score some points, even if they didn’t get any closer. At the score 43-30 Robbie Parker hit a spectacular 3 point buzzer beater to send Crusaders into the break with a strong 16-point lead.

Plymouth needed to start the second half well if they wanted to get back into the game, and after a single Kent basket Raiders did go on a 14-4 run getting some easy scores inside the key. Crusaders managed to stop the bleeding after a timeout came out once again playing tough defence and some good offence that saw Julian Naci score 6 easy points to restore the lead back to 16 points going into the final quarter.

This lead proved to be too much for the away side, and with Naci scoring another 8 points in the fourth they couldn’t cut into Crusaders lead. The final score ended 81-67.
Mads Olesen praised Naci’s performance at the end of the game “It was great to have another player step up and play big. Julian Naci played a big game, and it just shows that we have a lot of scoring options on this year’s team, which will make us more difficult to defend”. But he emphasised that it was a strong collective performance shown by the team’s 20 assists.