Wednesday, 11 October 2017

Bournville Bears 68 - 73 Leadonites (YBL U15 South)

YBL U15 South 
Bournville Bears 68 Vs 73 Leadonites 
(Q1: 13-13 / Q2: 15-20 / Q3: 19-17 / Q4: 21-23)

After last week’s disappointing home defeat to Spartans, Leadonites Basketball travelled to Dame Elizabeth Cadbury College to play Bournville Bears in what turned out to be a thrilling match to watch. The lead swapped sides eight times before the Ledbury boys finally pushed their noses ahead with 90 seconds of the last quarter left to play.
In the only two previous matches between these two clubs, both friendlies, the bears had won out convincingly with the last encounter finishing 79-21 to the Birmingham club.

Star of the match for Bourneville was Stove who hit a game high 40 points that started with a 3-pointer in the second minute of the match. A free-throw from Teo Calvo-Whitelegg got the Leadonites underway before he scored again with a lay-up to equal the scores. Further scores from George Robb and JJ Hobson gave Leadonites their first lead of the match. Sam Nicholls extended the lead in the seventh minute with Hobson and Michael French also scoring. But more baskets from Miller, getting tagged for his third foul of the quarter, and Stove again left the end of quarter scores level at 13-apiece.

Bournville opened the second quarter scoring as they had the first when Antrobes dropped a 3-pointer in the opening minute before Stove stretched their lead out further with another two. Hobson missed his four free-throw of the match before Josh Spriggs caught the rebound and scored his first points of the match. Stove reasserted Bears’ lead to 20-15 before a mini scoring spree from Leadonites with baskets from Spriggs, French, Alessio Miccio and a Calvo-Whitelegg single gave them a slender lead.  The two sides traded baskets but with Leadonites easing ahead through a combination of the defensive work under the hoop of Ethan Wheeler, Spriggs and Calvo-Whitelegg and scores from Robb, Spriggs and Calvo-Whitelegg before Spriggs finished the first half with a flurry of three close range scores to give the away team a half-time lead of 33-28.

Six third quarter baskets from Spriggs, aided with scores from Hobson (3pts) and Calvo-Whitelegg were enough to hold onto the lead despite being outscored 19-17 in the period to finish the third 50 points to the host’s 47.

Spriggs limped out of the match with a suspected dead-leg early in the fourth and Bears took advantage as they overtook scores from Joseph Fisher and Hobson to snatch back the lead in the third minute and then proceeded to run up a 58 to 54 lead by the end of the fourth minute. A score from Robb stemmed the flow and Spriggs was able to re-join the fray in the fifth minute and scored soon after. A free throw and a two from Calvo-Whitelegg plus another free-throw from Hobson got Leadonites level at 62-all.

With one of their main re-bounders off the court hurt disaster struck when Miller fouled out of the match with three minutes to play. Despite this set-back Bears forged out to a four-point lead with just two minutes left on the game-clock. Two quick-fire close range baskets from Spriggs and another two from Hobson regained the lead for Leadonites with one minute left to play. A converted free-throw from Calvo-Whitelegg were iced when team captain French rebounded two late missed free-throws to score on each and despite a last ditch score from Stove with only seconds to go the Herefordshire club chalked up their third win out of four for the season.

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