Recap
The Eagles travelled to second bottom Barrow looking to repeat their convincing home win of 50 points… They travelled without Aaron Wilson…
The Eagles landed in Barrow after a 3 hour plus journey, Coach Heath mixed up his starting 5 due to players not attending practice etc… The boys in black got off to a poor start allowing a triple from Jeffrey straight off the tip off to put the home side in blue up 3-0… The middle section of the period saw the Eagles go on a 0-12 run taking the score onto 7-16… The Thorns then went on a mini run of 7-0 as the visitors missed numerous opportunities…. The score at the break was 14-16….
The second period saw the visiting Eagles exert some better pressure defensively and this allowed them to score freely with Alex Williams hitting 11 points personal off the bounce making it 15-26… The boys in black held their opponents to just 5 points while they racked up 19 taking us into the half time at 19-35…. (5-19)
The second half saw the home team gather themselves and they started to compete more and the visitors became a little lack lustre and complacent… The Thorns edged the period 23-19 even though the Eagles hit three triples from Tom Usher and Alex Horta…. The score at the interval was 42-54….
The 4th quarter was a rather dull affair as Jeffrey opened the scoring with another triple for the Thorns but the Eagles always looked likely winners but it was hardly the blow out they had expected as they limped over the line 51-67… (9-13)
Eagles U23 Head Coach Graham Heath said “We came looking to build on our massive home win over Barrow to be greeted by a very different looking team in terms of personnel and our lack of commitment for 40 minutes reflected in the score line… I guess we played great in spurts and sometimes it’s hard to stay focused against a team that was always going to struggle against us…”
If we had played 4 quarters like the 2nd then we would have been about where we were when we played them at home….Time to regroup ready for our game with 3rd top Kingston….
Eagles Top Scorers- Themba Yabantu 12, Tom Usher 11, Alex Williams 11, Alex Horta 10 and Dan Parkin 10….
