[27 JAN 10] CRUSADER NEWS

 U18's Double Header Weekend

By Adam Manning 

COVENTRY CRUSADERS Under 18s slipped to a narrow 103-106 over time defeat to rivals Birmingham Mets at the Coventry Sports Centre last Saturday afternoon.

Head coach Alvin Scott described the defeat as “unbelievable”, after Coventry played two quarters of the game with an extra man, despite having influential point guard Billy Paronia fouled out of the game at the start of the fourth with the score in the balance at 74-76.

After letting their long held lead slip in the third quarter, Scott’s men managed to turn the score line back in their favour in the final period, although were unable to open up a gap of more than four points. This eventually allowed Birmingham’s K.Mills, whose accurate shooting gave him 51 points from the game, to beat off any pressure to execute two free throws to send the game into over time poised at 92-92. Mills was lucky to draw his team level, as moments earlier it looked like he had squandered his team’s chances of going into over time, yet Crusaders failed to gain the rebound and Mills was fouled again by Tanvir Shah to allow him to put things right second time round with less than 20 seconds left.

Crusaders began the game brightly in the opening minutes, going on a six point run which involved Craig Dakin and Henry Janda executing two point field goals from out wide either side of two points from Jon Egid who showed his sharp streak to turn and shoot instinctively.

Birmingham matched Crusaders in quick succession as M.Doffman and Mills hit down a three-pointer each to draw level. After Mets had managed to take a slim 10-9 lead, Coventry made Mets pay after taking advantage of some sloppy possession. First Craig Daking intercepted an ambitious cross court pass by Mets to run down and claim his two points by re bounding his initial lay up attempt, before M.Mohammed outdid Mets’ star Mills to allow Janda to set up Dakin for three points. Crusaders were hitting hot form, and added a further two points when Janda bustled his way to the basket for a lay up along with a 2 point rebound from Paronia to leave Coventry 18-10 up seven minutes in.

Impressive build up play around Birmingham’s area by Janda, Mohammed, Paronia and Dakin prompted their head coach telling his players to “stop standing on the spot and let them mark you”.

Crusaders started the second with a 23-16 advantage, and a hot scoring half by both teams meant Crusaders were able to maintain their lead at 47-42 heading into half time. After a stop start beginning to the quarter which saw free throws conceded by both sides, Matthew Bishton finished off a direct Crusaders attack after receiving a long range Paronia pass from the right to plant two points through the Mets basket, enabling Crusaders to extend their first quarter lead to eight points.

Luke Finlay’s heroic blocking from P.Khangura’s shot wasn’t enough to maintain Crusaders’ five point lead, when Mills launched his fourth three point field goal before Paronia allowed him a further two through free throws to leave the score line at 39-37.

Janda, Dakin and Paronia all got their side back on track though by grabbing two points a piece after finding no obstacle down the stretch.

The third quarter was a golden one for Birmingham as they finally managed to break down Crusaders’ resistance and take a six point lead into the final quarter. As it looked like Crusaders would head into the fourth defending their game long lead, Birmingham’s Mills took full advantage of four free throws whilst Crusaders’ Finlay missed the basket after being sent clean through on the counter attack by Dakin. Once level, Mets slowly widened their lead to 76-70 from two pairs of free throws gifted to them by Abdullah and Mohammed, and Mets’ Mills and J.Khatkar made no mistake in executing. Crusaders’ Janda did his best to stop Mets increasing their lead further by swiping the ball out of Doffman’s hands deep in Coventry’s back court after Dakin and Egid

Coventry brought the game back to Birmingham at the start of the fourth with Dakin spurring his side on with a direct, dazzling lay-up after the latter teamed up with Paronia to intercept from Khangura.

After another two points from Paronia, Dakin displayed his fearless dribbling again to put Crusaders ahead 80-79. However despite excelling further with two pointers from Janda and Bishton, Birmingham drew level three times, with the third comeback occurring after it seemed Shah’s composed two point lay-up had brought Crusaders’ five game winless run to an end. Yet Mills had four free throws in quick succession which resulted in Mets grabbing the required two points to head into over time after Tanvir Shah, the man of the moment at the other end, fouled Mills on the rebound from his second unsuccessful free throw attempt to give the in form youngster a chance to redeem himself with two valuable points to take the game into over time.

Crusaders played out five minutes of over time in the same manner as the game by taking the lead, only to fall in the late stages to Birmingham’s K.Mills. Crusaders’ Dakin inspired the side with his clinical and technical brilliance giving the youngster seven of Crusaders’ nine points in over time, six of which put them ahead at 98-92: where he managed to finish off a counter attack down the middle started off by Bishton, before going solo and dribbling from the right twice for another four points.

Birmingham’s Mills came back to haunt Coventry’s insurgency though, and added a two point lay up to Khanguara’s centred three pointer for a 106 total. Crusaders’ had a flicker of hope in the last five seconds when Janda went for a three pointer from wide right, yet his shot flew high and wide to bring an end to thoroughly entertaining and confident display by both teams.

After the game Alvin Scott praised the attitude of his side, but was left frustrated at the result:

 He said: “That’s the most aggressive we’ve played and it’s really frustrating because they played so well, for three quarters they played with energy, looked like they wanted to win and was a big improvement upon last week’s performance, but the outcome was almost unbelievable”.

“I don’t know how we can have five players on against four for two quarters and still not win the game. They had one star player, K.Mills, who we just couldn’t stop, he carved us open and created problems for us, he was very confident and everything he hit was going in.

We weren’t getting the calls and people kept fouling, and we nearly got fouled out of our own bench and so we nearly ended up with four versus four. We should have won that game, there’s not doubt about it, we’d done all the hard work, we ran hard and pressed them and it worked, but down the stretch we seemed to lose our head and we ran out of steam”.

Scott also highlighted the loss of point guard Billy Paronia as a major turning point in the game which he feels led to his side “losing their structure”:

“We lost our point guard Billy Paronia who runs the court and lost our way after that, so we lost a lot of our structure there, but there’s no real excuse for that, at the end of the day with four against five we should have won”.

He also gave a mention to youngster Craig Dakin, who was lively throughout and top scored for Crusaders with 29.

“Down the stretch Craig Dakin seemed like the only one who wanted to score, everyone else just freezed and I think the occasion got to them”.

*The Under-18s went on to win 90-78 at Worcester Wolves the following afternoon which ended six games without a win, and leaves them in ninth place level with three other teams on 19 points with 13 games played. Scott’s men were on the right end of a late comeback this time when they prevailed in the fourth after trailing for most of the game.

                               

  Main Menu | News | U18's Double Header   27 JAN 2010