New Medway Park Crusaders coach James Vear saw his team take their second win in three games Saturday as they took care of the visiting Team Northumbria 75-61 in convincing fashion behind Brad Smith’s 29 points and 13 rebounds.

Northumbria played their first game without dominant 6’8’’ big man Nils Steuber who has returned to Germany, and Crusaders took advantage of the Northerners lack of size. Crusaders started the game getting the ball inside to Brad Smith time and again, while in the other end they made good defensive stands. Smith scored eight points, including a thunderous dunk, as Crusaders ran out a 13-6 lead after five minutes.

The visitors tried to get back into the game through their star Chris Pearce who scored 6 points in the first quarter, but the Crusaders’ defence were able to stop his teammates who could only manage 8 points before the first interval.

In what became a trend of the game Northumbria stepped up their aggressiveness, playing full court press and physical defence to try and counter the Crusaders onslaught, but on the night it only resulted in sending the home team to the free throw line eight times in the first quarter and 35 times in the whole match.

Leading 24-14 after the first quarter Crusaders continued to build the lead as 17 year old Crusaders Academy player Andy Chiguri came on to guard Chris Pearce and contribute three points as Crusaders build the lead to 35-20 with two minutes to go in the first half. In the last two minutes of the half Northumbria were able to reduce the lead, but Crusaders went to the break leading 37-27.

Chris Pearce cut the Crusader lead to eight with the first basket of the second half, but from there Crusaders never looked back, building the lead to 26 points behind great defence which kept the visitors to six points for the first almost eight minutes of the quarter. Up 59-33 Crusader turnovers and missed free throws let the visitors cut the lead to 18 over the last two minutes of the quarter

The fourth quarter was much like the third as Crusaders kept the visitors to only four points over the first seven minutes. As the home side only scored nine points in the same interval the 72-49 lead didn’t quite feel secure, and the insecurity seemed to grip Crusaders as turnover upon turnover allowed Northumbria to cut the lead to 14 before time ran out.

Coach Vear was happy with the win and the effort: “We realised that this was a must win game if we wanted to push on up the league in the second half of the season. We have really concentrated on the defensive end over the past month and been looking at playing it for a full 40min. Tonight’s game was as close as we have been to that all season”

After the game young star Kalil Irving said: “We will keep working to make it hard for other teams to have an easy time. The defence that we have been working on the entire time has paid off”.

Notes

•    Brad Smith needs 4 more free throws to break Paul Jessop’s record for FT in a season
•    Brad Smith now 5th for rebounds in a season – 19 to tie Walter Moyse for 4th
•    James Harris needs 3 more Field Goals to tie Paul Jessop for 2nd in career FG
•    Damian Lyons passed Steve Findley to move to 4th in career rebounds