The Kent Crusaders finished the Patrons Cup with am unbeaten record as they beat Plymouth Raiders II in a game that was close until the fourth quarter when Crusaders closed out the game well and won by 14, 87-73

The Crusaders started the game well as they went up 14-4 behind two Mitchell 3-pointers and three Soren Sorensen baskets. Plymouth’s Jamie Birchall, who has five years experience with the Plymouth BBL side, didn’t let the visitors run away with, however, and scored 7 unanswered points to bring the hosts within two. This became a familiar pattern in the first half as Kent got up by 5-10 points before Plymouth, led by Birchall, made a come-back. In the end the first half ended all square, 39-39.

The third quarter was an even tighter affair as neither team got up by more than 3 points.
“We couldn’t find any offensive flow”, said Crusaders head coach Mads Olesen. “We didn’t go to the basket to score and we were looking for the referees to bail us out. Once we started looking at the basket again i knew we were going to be okay.”

The Crusaders had only 7 players available for the game due to injuries and family commitments and Canadian star guard Simon Mitchell thought that made a difference: “We all knew we could play better than we did but with only two substitutes we had to watch our fouls and we were maybe a bit scared of fouling. Once we got to the fourth quarter we were able to clamp down on defence, rebound aggressively, attack the basket and it didn’t hurt that Robbie parker and James Harris each hit two three pointers to put it away”.

Birchall scored the first two points of the quarter to bring raiders within 1 but from there Crusaders took over with a 26-7 run. Robbie parker did most of the offensive damage in the run as he had 16 points in the fourth quarter.

“Robbie played great on offence”, said Olesen, “but at the same time everybody were clamping down on defence and stopping Plymouth from doing what they wanted to do. Mike Webber and Soren Sorensen were able to keep the ball out of Birchall’s hands and that was another key to winning the game.”

The Raiders were allowed to limit the damage in the last two minutes as they scored six unanswered to bring the final score to 87-73.

Elsewhere in the Patrons Cup South Pool London Mets suffered an unexpected 18 points defeat to Northampton. The result doesn’t change the fact that London Mets finish second in the pool and Northampton finish last.

In the North there is still one game to be played, but it looks like Leeds will win the North setting up a semi-final between Kent Crusaders and second place team Northumbria in Canterbury on February 1^st. The two teams have a bit of history going back to the 2006 National Shield Final when both teams played Division 3 and Northumbria won convincingly in the final in Manchester. Both teams got promoted that season and have since split the four games in Division 2 – with none of the teams winning on their home court.

The Crusaders’ other scheduled game in the National Cup against Southampton Trail Blazers was given to Kent as the Blazers were unable to field a team due to injuries. Kent will play Briston or London Towers away in the third round of the cup on 9^th November.