Rocket Fire Wins the Fight

Crusaders came close to upsetting league contenders on Saturday night in front of an enthusiastic crowd at the Coventry Sports Centre. 

For the first five minutes the two sides were trading baskets and there was only a point between them.  But after the 6^th minute, Reading started pulling ahead with some fine team play, and Crusaders struggling to find the basket, leaving them 13-23 down.  It looked like it was going to be another long night. 

The second period didn’t fare too much better for the home side, although SAM Oatman managed to get off three 3-pointers followed up with two more baskets. With the exception of one basket scored by SCOTT Neely, Oatman was the only Crusader to score during the period. 

For Reading it was Ryan Williams who had a field day scoring 15 of his 27 total points and shooting 3/3 from the free throw line.  Williams scored at will, and Crusaders were fast losing motivation and pride, as Rockets lead increased to as much as 25 points. 

The home side looked like they were ready to hang up their boots early, and a couple of heads dropped noticeably before the interval gave them the opportunity to regroup and come up with a plan of action.  The half time score was a dismal 28-48 against Coventry. 

Whatever it was that occurred in the locker room during half time definitely changed the course of the game, although not the outcome. 

Crusaders began the second half with more baskets by Oatman, complimented by both Neely and Dip Donaldson, as they began their fight back. 

A quick three pointer by Williams could have dampened the Crusaders spirits, but their defence and back door plays were beginning to pay off and they chipped away, point by point until, at the end of the quarter they had clawed back ten points and limited Rockets turnout to just 14, still trailing, but only down 52-62. 

In the 3^rd, Oatman had put in another 14 points to add to his 41 point total, and the home crowd was loving the first sign of Crusaders pre-Christmas form. 

Despite the fact that new signing 6’ 11 Malik Omar was missing from the line-up due to a sore knee, after his very helpful 33 points against Tees Valley last weekend, Crusaders did a fair job of competing with the height of the Rockets. 

The 4^th opened with yet another Oatman 3-pointer, and the supporters in Coventry began to hope that a long-awaited win might happen after all.  

When Neely hit another three, and Oatman followed it with a quick basket the gap had closed to 60-64 with still over 7 minutes left to play in the game. 

Although the Crusaders kept their intensity going as much as they could, they could not quite overcome the Rockets. 

Then players started fouling out for Crusaders, with first Sam Spare, rebounding specialist for Crusaders, then scoring machine Neely fouled out along with Alban Schauly. 

Steve Vear who directed things very capably for Rockets all night , also fouled out trying to contain Oatman.  But Rockets had regained enough of their composure by then, to hang on to their lead and take the win, 74-83, keeping their league title hopes alive for another weekend. 

Crusaders hit 11 three pointers compared to Rockets 3, but Rockets were allowed to go to the stripe 38 times compared to Crusaders 6 trips to the free throw line. 

Serge Ndoumbe contributed well for Crusaders, stepping up the defence on Rockets players and helping out with rebounding. 19 year old Roy Owen who has started for Crusaders over the past few weeks, had to retire from the game early due to a groin injury. 

Although the Crusaders are still looking for their next elusive win, Dip Donaldson remains optimistic about his side. 

“We didn’t play as intelligently as I would have liked in the first half, and dug a deep hole for ourselves.  You can’t let a team like Reading get that much of a lead and not expect to have an uphill battle to recover.  Rockets aren’t in 2^nd place by luck.  They got there because they are good at what they do. 

I do have to give our guys some credit, though.  We did make a good comeback.  If the deficit hadn’t been so big we might just have had enough energy left to do the job.  As it is, Reading was able to hold onto their composure and do what needed to be done to take home the win. 

Serge Ndoumbe did a great job for us defensively.  He’s been telling me he wants to mark the best perimeter shooters, and he got a chance to during this game, backing up what he said he would do. 

Hopefully we can use the momentum we started with in the second half to carry over into the last few games of the season. We still have time to change a lot of things, not least of all, our league table position.” 

Crusaders Scorers: Baynes Clarke 5, Donaldson 7, SCOTT Neely 21, SAM Oatman 41 

Rockets Scorers: Ashwin 2, Kelly 2, Wellings 4, Watts 5, Cook 7, Vear 9, Madsen 11, Humphreys 16, Williams 27