First half:
Sean, Tom, Josh, Harry, & Matt A were first in for Cheadle.
Hornets pressed hard at the beginning, but Cheadle scored first at 3 minutes - Sean making a longish shot from a fast cross-court pass by Tom. Then a good pass from Matt A 30 seconds later gave Josh the chance to make it 4:0. Hornets pressed all the harder as a result, and finally, after 5 minutes, they broke through dramatically with 3 baskets made within 60 seconds (#7 and #24).
After a time-out CT couldn't quite get back into the same form they'd started with. Though Josh did score again (great passes here from Matt A and then Harry) Cheadle were on the back foot defensively and were lucky that Hornets' leading players couldn't make the free throws.
With the score at 12 minutes 10:6 Joe, Matt F and Dan came on to join Josh and Harry. The new line-up attacked more, but were unlucky with their shots, Dan, Joe and Harry all had near misses and Josh couldn't quite get his free throws in this week . Matt A, coming back on to replace Matt F (too sick to play) made a final after-time penalty point to finish the half.
Half time score: CT - 7; SH - 16
Second Half:
With Josh and Harry off on a hike (!) and Matt F sitting the rest of the game out, the rest of the match was up to Dan, Joe, Sean, Tom, and Matt A.
SH came on strong at the beginning making 4 baskets (#7 and #10) in the first 5 minutes against poor opposition from CT, who seemed not to have the energy even to run back in defence, let alone launch an attack. But after a time-out the team pulled itself back together and at 8 minutes Sean made a good basket after outpacing the opposition up court, and Tom added a second from his favourite position in low-post.
SH responded with 2 quick baskets but some good defence by CT blunted the sting of the Hornets' attack (ha-ha!), and they often looked confused when CT were attacking - Joe's basket at 10 minutes was made from a throw in by Dan that left the defenders in the wrong half of the court.
In the last 5 minutes of the game there were signs that CT were getting tired, and SH #7 made 3 easy baskets against a relaxed defence - though without Matt A marking him he may well have scored more. But the final 2 minutes were Cheadle's: great basket from Joe, leaving the pack way behind; and Matt A's excellent mobility and persistence in the last few seconds gave him the final 2 points.
Final Score CT - 17; SH - 39
Stats:
CT: Joe, Sean, Josh - 4 each; Matt A - 3; Tom - 2
SH: (very difficult to see the numbers on this team) #7 - 20 or more; #24 - 6+; #10 - 2?
Pros and cons:
Very good start by Cheadle with attacking play that SH couldn't counter. After SH broke through and scored 2 baskets quickly CT seemed to lose their nerve, and hardly contested the 3rd. But the team did pull itself back together fairly quickly. Not such a quick recovery in the second half - it took 5 or 6 minutes and a chat from Andy to get the team up and running again. But after that it was a pretty good fight-back from a line-up who had been on court for most of the game.
There were a lot of good passes in this game, quite often leaving SH out of position and creating opportunities for CT.
When we played Hornets in November last year the score was 38:12, so a slight improvement on first sight. But CT had 2 players absent, 2 leaving at half-time, and another too sick to play more than a few minutes, so we upgrade the improvement from “slight” to “definite”
The reduced squad did lead to players getting out of their comfort zones - Dan in attack and Tom driving into the key, Sean and Joe both getting into Matt A's territory and picking up some good rebounds.
And on that subject, best moment of the match for me was Boomerang claiming a rebound from a scrum of four SH players all fighting and jumping for the same ball. And looking cool with it. Well, if f you've got it, flaunt it, I suppose.
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