By Ryan Gillham
Newcastle Eagles defeated the Durham Wildcats for the fourth time this season, with a 94-69 victory at Sport Central, Newcastle on Friday night.
After the Wildcats had given a valiant performance against the Eagles last time, the league leaders weren’t going to take them lightly and they certainly showed that in this game by giving Durham a master class in basketball.
Eagles stormed into a 21-0 lead in the first period and never relinquished their grip on the game, leaving the battling Wildcats helpless.
Wildcats’ Mario Flaherty was disappointed with the defeat, despite his 23 points for the visitors.
He said: “I am obviously disappointed with the team performance today and being a team player, we win as a team and we lose as a team no matter what type of performance I put in.
“It was a sweet and sour game for me. I managed to put 23 points on the board but at the end of the day we lost and that’s all that matters. The first quarter was a real killer for us, we couldn’t seem to buy a basket never mind score one and the Eagles really took advantage of that and fair play to them.
“We just need to go away as a team and look where we went wrong and try put things right going into the next game.”
There were celebrations before tip-off for two of the Eagles roster as Fabulous Flournoy received Coach of the Month and Charles Smith claimed Player of the Month for January and the celebrations didn’t stop there for the Newcastle based team.
Wildcats were without Ralph Bucci after he had been given a week off, which made head coach Dave Elderkin hand a start to Liam O’Mahoney.
The game started off in poor fashion as both teams failed to score a basket within the opening two minutes but finally Joe Chapman opened up the scoring for the Eagles. Newcastle then really brought their ‘A’ game by shutting out the Wildcats offence and went onto a lead of 21-0.
Flaherty eventually put points on the board for the Wildcats, scoring nine in the first quarter and Dj Glavan contributed two points as the quarter came to an end with the score standing at 32-11 to the Eagles.
Durham came into the second quarter with a positive attitude and showing improvements on the offensive side of the court narrowing the deficit to 13 with the score at 34-21 but the comeback was short lived as the Eagles showed their strengths and moved it up a gear leaving the score at the end of the second quarter 48-27.
In the third both teams at the start of the quarter were trading baskets before Eagles then again opened up and Joe Chapman caused more pain on the Wildcats as he took his points tally up to 24 points by the end of the quarter.
Durham showed glimpses of why they shouldn’t be taken lightly, though, moving the ball nicely round the court narrowing the gap once again but the Eagles were always that one better finishing the third 83-47.
After a few changes from both benches, the fourth saw the Wildcats take advantage of simple turnovers and poor offensive play by the Eagles, bringing the deficit down to a 23 point ball game but then Newcastle started to put a show on for the fans by showing their class with some fine alley-oops to finish off the game.
As the buzzer sounded the game ended 94-69 to the Eagles, keeping their impressive season going at the top of the BBL table with a record of 16-1 with a game in hand on second place Worcester Wolves and the Wildcats at the other end sitting at the bottom with a record of 2-16.
M.V.P went to Joe Chapman of the Newcastle Eagles after an impressive performance; 24 points, 8 Rebounds and 4 Assists.
Durham Wildcats – Mario Flaherty 23 points, Dj Glavan 15 points, Paul Elderkin/Mike Capocci 8 points.
Newcastle Eagles – Joe Chapman 24 points, Andrew Thomson/Darius Defoe 14 points, Charles Smith, 13 points.
