Newcastle Eagles continued their flying start to the European North Basketball League Group (ENBL) with a very solid 75 – 61 win over the visiting Bulgarians of Spartak Pleven. After last week’s win on the road in Slovakia against Spisski Rytieri this was the first home stand of the campaign.

Head coach Marc Steutel will probably be pleased with the way his side bounced back from the Cheshire defeat in the domestic Trophy in the same building last Friday. It means that they can now go into Friday nights’ huge Super League Basketball (SLB) Trophy game at Sheffield with a win under their belts.

It’s always difficult to gauge how the early season European games will go as both teams are still looking to gel as the season progresses. For Newcastle though with seven games played and a 5 – 2 record in all competitions it always felt as though they would be the more cohesive side of the two.

The Bulgarians had lost their first two in the ENBL and were only 1 – 1 domestically now they are 0 – 3 in this prestigious competition and facing an early elimination from the competition unless they can turn their fortunes around in spectacular style.

The Eagles on the other hand look as if they have already got the hang of this season’s campaign and with another home game to come on November 5th against Donar Groningen they could be set for an explosive start as they look to make the top four in Group A.

That’s the aim for all teams as the ENBL is split into two groups of nine teams. Each team plays each other once and have four games at home and four away. The teams that finish in the top 4 positions facing off against each other from different groups in the quarter-final playoffs.

For Newcastle though that means another six games and what they need to do is balance that schedule with a demanding domestic calendar to see if they can emulate last year’s run to the quarter-finals.

The game on Tuesday was a one that Eagles basically won in the first and third quarters. Whether the travel was still in Pleven’s legs or not the Bulgarians certainly looked rusty early on as Steutel’s men flew out to an 11 – 0 start and held Pleven scoreless in the first 5 minutes and 5 seconds.

Pleven did get on the board, but Seneca Knight and Josh Ward-Hibbert in particular drove the Eagles on as they dominated the first quarter to lead by 13 points at 25 to 12. Cole Long coming off the bench to nail 3-triples from his first three shots.

However, Spartak had looked as if they were beginning to find their feet as the quarter wore on and certainly showed some fight in the second period with the introduction of Milan Zahariev giving them a much needed spark.

They won that 10-minute stretch 19 – 11 to cut the gap to a mere five points as the teams headed to the locker rooms at half-time. A worry for Steutel was that both his big men in Darius Defoe and Malcolm Delpeche were in foul trouble with Defoe eventually fouling out in the fourth quarter.

Delpeche though responded splendidly with 7 points of Eagles 9 points to 1 opening to the third that re-established a double-digit lead for Newcastle and from their they controlled the rest of the third quarter to win it by eight points and take a 13-point advantage into the final quarter.

A final ten-minutes where Eagles did enough to ward off any comeback attempts from the brave visitors down the stretch and managed to seal in the end a comfortable double-digit win to show real European pedigree and good signs for the remaining games in their group.

It’s back to SLB Trophy action this Friday with our Eagles away in a must-win game at Sheffield Sharks which can be watched live and free on DAZN.

Newcastle’s next ENBL tip-off is Tuesday 5 November against Dutch side Donar Groningen and tickets for that game can be purchased from the box office. All the European tip-offs are included with All Access season tickets, while SLB game only card holders can book their seats until 5-days before the game.