The Medway Park Crusaders started their season with a 92-83 Patrons Cup win against newly promoted Westminster Warriors in front of an impressive crowd at their new home at the Black Lion/Medway Park Leisure Center.

Although it ended up being a rather high scoring affair it didn’t start out that way, as both teams started nervously in the season premiere. The scoring in the first quarter was sporadic, with both teams struggling to get going. The guests got on the board first as they took a quick three point lead behind Junior Williams’ penetration and a subsequent steal on their full court press defence.

Crusaders quickly responded, though, as James Harris celebrated his 100th game as a Crusader by fearlessly pulling up for the first of his five three pointers. From there turnovers and poor shooting from both teams dominated the quarter, and at the end of the first 10 minutes the score was as low as 14-12, Warriors.

“We just made some bad choices offensively in the first quarter”, Crusaders head coach Mads Olesen said. “We have this Canadian beast of a big man in the middle, and we didn’t even look to give him the ball. From the second quarter onwards we looked inside and when we got Brad Smith established as a scorer they had to focus on him and everything else opened up”.

The Crusaders offence stopped firing blanks in the second quarter, as they put a 30 point performance together. Smith got the ball on the inside twice in the first couple of minutes and scored on both, and slowly Crusaders started building a lead. Three pointers by Tom Raymen, James Harris and Lewis Elgar put the Crusaders ahead, and Kalil Irving capped a 22-14 run off with a couple of raids into the lane to bring Crusaders up 34-28.

The guests were led by Wilkins and Williams, with Wilkins heating up from outside, scoring two three pointers and Junior Williams using his vast experience as a BBL and England player to get into the lane and score or feed other players at will.

Defensive stops helped Crusaders build the lead to 40-31 but Warriors cut the advantage to 42-35 at half time.

The second half was dominated by foul calls as the teams shot 61 free throws between them. Both coaches managed to pick up a technical foul for arguing with the referees, but Olesen put the blame on himself and his team:

“Like everybody else the referees are going to make mistakes, and it’s not helping anyone if we start questioning every call. I’m sure that when I watch the video I’ll find that yes, the referees made errors, but it was our defensive breakdowns that lead to the situations where the fouls were called. Our motto this year is “No Excuses”, and looking at the referees when we make mistakes is an excuse we just can’t afford to make”.

Both teams kept the intensity despite the many breaks, and the second half was dominated by the stars, Brad Smith for Crusaders and Junior Williams for the Warriors. Crusaders continuously found Smith in the key, and he put 15 points up in the second half. He was backed up at the defensive end by JP Dimandja, who had four huge blocked shots.

Williams used his quickness and experience to run circles around his defenders, and he also scored 15 points in the second half. He wasn’t able to bring the Warriors within shooting range of Crusaders after they build a nine point lead early in the half. The Crusader lead hovered abound 10 points all the time, and every time the Warriors looked like they might come back Brad Smith seemed to get a basket.

After the game when James Harris was asked about how it felt to have played his 100th career game for Crusaders he looked puzzled before lighting up in a smile: “I didn’t even know about it, I totally forgot.” Upon reflection and upon being told he is eight points from being only the third ever Crusaders to break 1000 points and eight makes away from breaking the record for most career three pointers he said: “That’s really cool, as the first three years I hardly played. It’s quite good to have gone from hardly ever playing and to have gone on to being a starting guard. It’s been good to be recognized after so many years”.

Coach Olesen praised Harris for his achievement: “This is my fifth season with the club and I think James has won the most improved player award every year but one, and deservedly so. He has worked tirelessly on his game and his physique and has gone on to become one of our most important players. Knowing him I wouldn’t count him out for another most improved award this year.”

Harris actually seemed to be more happy about the team’s success than his won merits: “It was great. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and everybody cheered for each other. We seemed to be showing ourselves well as a team. It was great that almost everyone scored and everyone seemed to be fired up and emotionally charged. It was a lot of fun to play on this team tonight”.