The Newcastle Eagles men’s team complete a brutal three games in five days run with a SLB Championship clash on the road at Caledonia Gladiators on Sunday afternoon. They do so looking for a second successive win after a sensational victory at Sheffield by 80-68 on Friday night.
Few gave Head Coach Marc Steutel’s team much of a chance at Sharks who were the form team in the SLB. Atiba Lyons picking up the Coach of the Month award alongside his star guard Rodney Chatman III the Player of the Month after a red-hot November for Sheffield.
But despite once again facing adversity, the Eagles added Deion Hammond to an injury list that included Josh Ward-Hibbert, Marco Anthony and Gus Okafor, Steutel’s magnificent seven that saw court time played with a cohesive togetherness and determination that he was so pleased with.
“I’m really proud of the team with the performance. Defensively the guys did a really positive job of sticking to what we wanted to achieve and I thought the guys were really disciplined on that side of the game.”
“We put in our defensive ideas as the game progressed so credit to the guys for that. Rebounding at key moments was really positive and we finished plays well at the right time. It was a really proud win and so pleased to get contributions from everybody and the seven guys that played.”
Eagles did indeed initialise Steutel’s thoughts on defence not allowing any of Sheffield’s starting five to get into double figures whilst his own starters certainly did show their strength at both ends of the floor. Maceo Jack leading the way with 28 points, Cole Long having 14 and Ray’Sean Taylor 12.
Emmanuel Kanwei emphasising the rebounding with 13 boards pulled down and Aussie guard Mitch Clarke a huge energy spark from the bench with 16 points. Newcastle made their first run in the second period after a 17-17 opening ten minutes. It meant they took a 44-39 lead by half-time.
They steadily increased that in the third quarter to lead by 12-points going into the final period where they continued to show great defensive efforts and efficiency to tie the quarter and end with a very satisfying and massively deserved 80-68 points win.
No rest for Newcastle and Steutel’s players as his thoughts turned to Sunday afternoon in Scotland against the Gladiators. A game that is always fiercely contested.
“We understand that a third game in five days with a light roster is going to be difficult. But we’ve had difficult situations all year and the guys should be confident after Friday. That’s two out of three in our last domestic games.”
“We feel like those little kind of plays that we wanted to get better at from earlier in the season we are now. On Sunday we need to make sure we play with the same kind of desire the same kind of intent on both sides of the ball.”
“Hopefully, we can go and get another win in a difficult environment. They’ve got new guys in on their roster and haven’t played since the international break. We on the other hand are playing our third game in five days so that’s an interesting to see.”
“They have a talented roster with these new guys including ex-Eagle Malcolm Depeche who I’m happy to see him come back from injury and secure a job in the League. But it’ll be business as usual from us and hope that we can play at the level we can and get the job done.”
