Crusaders Under 14’s second game in 2 weeks versus fellow title contenders Hertfordshire Warriors unsurprisingly proved much more difficult that the first.
With Tommy Dobson and Miciah Lakanu both missing tough injury, the 12 fit players took the 180 mile round trip to North London.
The game started quite slowly with neither team establishing dominance. Early points from Liam Carpenter, Dominic Ives and Tyler Russell sent us 2 points up at the end of the first quarter.
Despite points from James lloyd, Max Carpenter, Dave Couchman and Kyle Vincett, a combination of sloppy basketball, uncharacteristic mistakes and missed free throws allowed Warriors to tie the game at 25 points a piece at half time.
At half time, to their credit, senior players within the team had a few constructive yet heated words with each other and it was clear that everyone agreed that a much improved second half was needed.
Crusaders came out in the 3rd quarter firing and an 11-0 run proved the crucial turning point. Despite a brief comeback at the end of the quarter, Crusaders went in with a 7 point lead.Identical to the start of the 3rd quarter, Crusaders once again came out firing in the 4th quarter and stretched the lead up to 15 points.
Towards the end of the game, Mitchell Rae and Conner Gordon game on to play important minutes for the team.
The Game ended Crusaders 59, Warriors 49.
Coach Fenton said “If the warriors play like that for the rest of the season I’m sure that they will be there or there abouts. I’m just glad we have beaten them twice and don’t have to play them again this season.”
This weekend was meant to be a double header but unfortunately Sevenoaks Suns were unable to field a team, so therefore Cruasders was awarded the game 20-0.
The two victories this weekend therefore leave Crusaders top of the league with an 8-0 record. Our short term target must now be to win our 3 games before christmas, the last one being against Spelthorne Atoms who have had a mixed set of results but on the day are tough opposition for any team in the division.
Coach Matt Fenton’s MVP for this game was Liam Carpenter.
Crusaders have once again extended their winning run with 8 wins out of 8. They have 3 home games before Christmas.
Statistics – Hertfordshire Warriors Game
EBL National League Under 14’s Boys South II Division
Hertfordshire Warriors (10, 25, 33) 49
Medway Park Crusaders (12, 25, 40) 59
Scoring:
Medway: Liam Carpenter 16, Tyler Russell 14, Dave Couchman 10, Kyle Vincett 10
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Under 14s. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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