[28 FEB 10] CRUSADER NEWS

 Crusaders U18 News

Crusaders (29) 65

Northants Thunder (54) 90

By James Bourne:

 

Coventry Crusaders under 18’s stumbled to a 65-90 defeat against Northants Thunder at the Sports Centre to keep them at the foot of the Midlands Conference.

The visitors hadn’t won away from home all season and were one of only two teams in the league not to break 1000 points for the regular season, so the Crusaders will see this as an opportunity missed.

Head coach Alvin Scott spoke of his frustration after the game, saying: “We need to fight on the rebounds, we also need to make sure that we catch the ball and look after the ball in turnovers.

“Even with all the things against us, such as lack of court time, they’re better than this. It’s almost as if losing has become a habit. I don’t see enough fight, courage and strength of character.”

Despite the disappointment, Scott had praise for Henry Janda, who impressed in the final ten minutes.

“I think Henry Janda came on and played well towards the end, but it took three quarters to get anybody going,” he said.

Scott added: “We had a game plan where we were going to go out to their shooters. That worked for a certain portion of the game where we were staying home and compacting the key, and that worked apart from they would get the rebound and have another go.

“There were times when they had five tries at the basket before we got the ball.”

The tie was a real basement battle, with both the Crusaders and Thunder on 23 points before play. Only five points separated seven teams in a bottleneck at the foot of the league.

Both sides started out evenly, with Thunder making the most of their height advantage on boards and Crusaders battling hard to stay in touch in a tight first five minutes.

However, at 14-12 Thunder began to capitalise and ran away with the rest of the quarter, going in at 17-30 after ten minutes.

Coach Scott started the second quarter with big forwards to try and take the sting out of Northants’ board attack. However, a 13 point run from the visitors made it 17-43 and gave the Crusaders a huge task to claw the deficit back.

The score which broke the run was a gem however, engineered by Billy Paronia’s superb bounce pass to Sanjay Gill who couldn’t miss with the lay up.

The game was played at a frantic pace for the most part, with neither side being able to keep the ball for sustained periods, resulting in a lot of turnover ball.

Coventry however were unable to take advantage, and Thunder kept the scoreboard ticking over, going in 29-54 up at half time.

In contrast to the quickness of the second quarter, the third started off low-key, with neither team finding much fluency. The highlight for Crusaders fans was Craig Dakin slotting home from outside the arc to make it 32-61 after a five point run from the visitors.

Billy Paronia also had a good spell, nailing four points in succession thanks to a deuce from the left and two free throws.

But the Crusaders were unable to get many rebounds, thanks to Thunder smothering the attacking rebounder, which would occasionally draw the foul but otherwise result in turnover ball.

A fine lay-up from Henry Janda and a reverse shot from Craig Dakin were the other highlights of the third, but the game was practically over as a contest at 44-75.

Despite the scoreline, the Crusaders showed a lot of fight and intensity in the final ten winning it 21-15, thanks in small part to lapses in the visitors’ defence, but in most part to a committed performance from Henry Janda, who scored 10 points in the quarter, ably assisted by Billy Paronia.

Northants’ tiring defence wasn’t able to cope with Janda’s strength, and his ten points included three classy lay-ups, as well as a 100% free throw record, nailing four from four after causing havoc inside.

Visiting coach Rob Edden lambasted his team’s lacklustre performance in the final ten, but the game had already been sewn up, and the visitors recorded a 65-90 success to drag them away from the bottom of the table.

 

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