Newcastle Eagles saw out the old year with a crucial win in the SLB Championship at Surrey on Tuesday night. Their hard-fought 88-82 victory was important to keep them in touch with the other teams around them in the standings as well as moral booster for Friday night in the Vertu Arena.

That game is the first leg of the SLB Trophy Semi-Final against Cheshire Phoenix with the second leg scheduled for Sunday evening at the Ellesmere Port Sporting Village. It’s going to be another tough challenge for Head Coach Marc Steutel’s players as he reflected on the win in Surrey.

“I thought it was a really good important game for us. We did a really positive job in controlling what we can. We managed what we could in the game. It was a difficult game to stay balanced and composed in.”

“We played consistent but I didn’t think the game was managed in a consistent way. We did a good job in staying consistent ourselves. Surrey are a talented team and have some ability to score in different ways.”

“We negated that. They are the number one rebounding team in the country for a reason and I thought second half we did a really good job of making sure it was one and done and different guys stepped up at different moments.”

“It was great to see Mitch Clarke and Manny Kanwei impact the game in the fourth quarter in particular in the way that they did. A positive game on the whole with a really solid last twenty minutes to finish 2025 with a win and cap a really solid month in December for us.”

Eagles were once again hit by injury with Ray’Sean Taylor missing the game but as Steutel mentioned others stepped up. Clarke taking MVP honours with 17 points and 9 rebounds, Kanwei had 16 points and didn’t miss a shot all night in an excellent supporting role.

New point guard Terrell Burden continues to acclimate well and had 14 points, 4 rebounds and 7 assists Deion Hammond and Maceo Jack both had 11 points and Cole Long added 11 rebounds to his 8 points in a good all-round team display.

But, as ever, the games come thick and fast and Steutel turned his attention to Cheshire on Friday night in that Trophy Semi-Final.

“We’ve got to make sure we build on that. The Cheshire game is in a competition we really care about. Playing them over 80 minutes is going to be a difficult task for sure. We’ve got to try and make sure we physically impose ourselves on the game.”

“We need to take pride in our quality on the contests at the defensive end and slow them down. That’s obviously difficult to do as they play really fast. We have to stay consistent over the 80 minutes and understand that whatever happens on Friday it’s only half-time.”

“Regardless of Friday’s result we have to go down to their place on Sunday. As ever we’re excited for the opportunity. It’s great to be in the first semi-final of the season and we want to do all that we can to progress to the next stage.”

“I love working with this group and hopefully our fans will come out again in bunches and make some noise for us and we’ll see what we can do.

The Eagles and Phoenix have already met twice this season in the SLB Championship with both winning their home games and the Eagles having the aggregate points balance. More of the same is what is required over this weekend.

Tickets are still available from the box office.