Recap
The Eagles were looking to do their first double of the season against a Manchester team with only one win to their name….
The game played at Benfield Sports Centre saw the Specialist Panels sponsored Eagles U23s look to build on their promising show from the week before… The early exchanges were all the Eagles as top scorer Ben Hogg dominated the visitors and by the midpoint of the period they were 19-7 up… The Magic playing in red then hit 9 without reply making it 19-16… The home team then hit 4 to 2 making it 23-18 at the break…..
The second quarter saw the visitors go on a small 4-8 run out of the break making it 27-24… The boys in black then turned up the intensity on defence and they go on a 10-0 run putting them 37-24 up…they then went on a 10-2 run which included two perimeter bombs from Alex Horta making it 47-26 at the 7th minute… The half time came around with the Eagles up 52-28… (31-14)
The 3rd period saw the Eagles dominate the first 8 minutes advancing the score onto 80-45 on the back of some great scoring from Themba Yabantu…
The Magic then in the last 2 minutes were gifted points from the free throw line as the Eagles hit foul trouble and the visitors didn’t miss many as they went on a 2-9 run taking the score to 82-54…. (28-22)
The fourth quarter was a much lower scoring affair with the home team edging it 16-11 closing the game out at 98-65… (16-11)
Eagles head coach Graham Heath said “We turned up for forty minutes today and played great at both ends… Our 10 players all got onto the score sheet and we covered well for injured forward Dan Parkin…. Our defence lead to some great offence and we executed well around the basket and the perimeter… We can go into our Christmas break feeling good and getting ready for our assault on a play off push….”
EAGLES TOP SCORERS- Ben Hogg 28, Themba Yabantu 13 and Alex Horta 13….
The Eagles will travel to Sheffield to play the Sabres on January 6th 2018….
