South East Tigers 53 – 52 East Grinstead Flyers
South East Tigers made it three wins out of four with a 53 – 52 victory over East Grinstead Flyers last Wednesday evening at Battle Sports Centre.
A tough match where defence dominated offense saw many lead changes throughout, was decided by one point.
A slow nervy start by both teams kept the score low and after the first quarter Tigers had a slender 11-10 advantage. Both teams were unable to move the ball inside successfully against compact defences, which saw the forwards from both sides cancelling each other out.
Both teams started the second quarter playing full court pressure defences which in turn forced poor shot selections and a number of turnovers. This time however the visitors were the better winning the quarter by two points and taking a one point lead into the half time break.
The second half saw both teams re-focus and the flyers become more aggressive on their offensive play. Tigers found more space on the perimeter and scored 3 three pointers (Lowe, Burt, Hambridge) in the quarter. East Grinstead were better at drawing fouls and made 9 trips to the foul line, scoring from 7 of them. Score at the end of Q3 saw Tigers 40-38 up.
Final quarter and Flyers resorted to a 2 man game with the majority of there points now coming from speedy left handed point guard Kallas (15), and 6’7” Koster (17). Geoff Lowe had a great final quarter, stealing possession twice and scoring 8 points including 2 three pointers. Tigers were 2 points up with 90 seconds remaining, but a Kallas free throw and 3 pointer saw Flyers grab the lead by 50-52 with 29 seconds on the clock. Tigers last offence reversed the ball round to Lowe who hit the clutch long shot to give the Tigers the narrowest lead with 11 seconds left. Flyers flew up court but their last second shot was heavily pressured, and hit the front rim and bounced out.
The win keeps Tigers level at the top of the Sussex league. Men’s coach Andy Hodder said after the match ‘The team have developed a resilience this season that enables them to grind out results when necessary. However, our offence is still not functioning well and we have a lot of improving to do, as we should have won this game by 12-15 points.”
Scorers:- Geoff Lowe 19; Tim Hambridge 10; Pawel Skrzypek 9; Joel Hunt, Duane Weller, Josh Burt 3; Justin Hemmings, Louis Parsk, Gary Harrison 2.
The Youth teams were also competing this week. The U16 were against Crawley Cagers and the U18 verses their local rivals the Eastbourne Lions. Both teams were unable to secure a win but club chairman Hung Li said ‘This is our first year competing with youths teams and I am encouraged by the improvement in both teams as they face their first experiences of real league competition.’