Friday 28th Jan.
The Seahawks travelled to Winchester to face the Warriors for a second time in as many weeks. With Dan now sidelined for the season, Hani & Gabe away for University interviews, we were missing 3 of the starting 5, so I took the desicion to take some younger ones and give them a run. This game was meant to be a foregone conclusion and we had resided ourselves it was 40 mins of experience.
HOWEVER...
Starting with myself in the centre, Iraj & Luke in the forwards and Rakhat and Timo in the guards, we came out flying!! The press was good, but the offense was running. Timo quickly added 6, Rakhat grabbed another and I drained the 3 to make it 11-0 before they finally broke the duck. We collapsed the zone and played deep on D, not allowing the passes across the 5, and kept them out. There was nothing we could do, if they got inside against the towering Ferry #00 and Weve #34 but sensible D meant fouls were not an issue. At the other end we got a bunch of charity shots. We simply played the best 10 minutes weve played. And when Luke drained the half court at the buzzer it was 10-25 to us!!
We were buzzing. Even coming off the bench every player gave their all. Henry was his normal, quick, buzzy self, Zhong played super strong in the post against a guy twice his size and weight and kept him out, Myles hustled on D and ran sensible offences, Josh was a little off, with tough pressure from the guard but still ran and worked.
As I got a grabbed a 2nd foul, i took a quick break, which allowed them to take advantage of the lack of size. 14-31 quickly changed to 25-31 before i checked back in. Timo put a stop to their run, with a 3 point play, making his layups and being hit on every drive. (Shouts of "leave him, he'll never make that" from the bench were soon silenced). Luke was struggling to find his range on tough, stiff rims, but added a deuce from the floor. But as the clock ran down they somehow managed to a 4 point play to drop! Probably their only outside shot of the game to go! He hit the free throw to tie it up after 2. 37-37.
The third was our nemesis, starting well. Iraj added a 2 on a great post move. Luke added another triple but at 48-44 our offence went a little quiet. They relied exactly where they should have, on size, and took it to 66-45 after 3.
A 21 point difference however, we werent gonna roll over. Determined to cut the lead we plugged away, continued to run and drive and Josh and Rakhat added some more before back-to-back 3's from Luke it was 74-57 (17pts). Free throws and a bucket from myself and it was down to 14. But time was running out. We had to rely on our 3's to cut it as we traded baskets. We sent them to the line lots, stopping easy baskets and hoping the big guys had no range from 18ft and it helped (1 from 9) but the final minute was them add 2 breaks to close it 84-66.
This is a coaches dilema. A brilliant first quarter. A good second with a run by them while i sat. A slow, poor 3rd and a great 4th. In a game we expected to get whooped in, we showed up. Pride in the team for that. But should we have squandered such a big lead? Maybe not. Could we have gotten the win? Maybe. But was i happy... For Sure.
[Scorers: T Schnabl 26, L German 16, O Wood 14, R Kabdygaliyev 4, J Strongman 2, I Safaee 2]
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