Hornets: 48

Stockport: 83

Hornets beaten by a well drilled Stockport Atlas team

Hornets knew that this was always going to be a tough assignment and on the night were beaten by a Stockport Team that gave nothing away in defence and were very accurate in their shooting (10 x 3 pointers and 19 from 21 off the free throw line)

Q1 was a sparkling performance from the Hornets though. Tight in defence and patient in offence. Tom Lee opened with a neatly worked 2 pointer and Sam Barnard tipped in before Tom scored a trade mark 3 pointer.Guy Johnson and John Whelan also added superb Jumpshots to leave the Hornets up by 2 after the first quarter.

Some of the Atlas Big guns started to fire in Q2 and they shut their defence at the same time. The Hornet Bench struggled to find any joy from inside and resorted to long range shots that were on the whole unsuccessful. Andy Sienkiewicz scored close in and John added another jump shot but the Hornets lost the lead in the 4th minute of Q2 and never got it back from there. Atlas really turned up the heat now and had a spell that they won 17-2 to effectively finish the match as a contest.

Q3 wasn’t a lot better from the Hornets perspective but the reintroduction of Barney was giving their defence some problems Barney dropped a couple of jump shots and Sam Bithell and Danny Warham, with a 3 pointer, also added to the total but after 3 quarters the Hornets had only registered 30 points and a massacre was on the cards.

But with the Hornet’s pride at stake the standard of basketball improved dramatically. Better offensive passing created gaps for the shooters to work in. Sam Bithell landed a couple of 3 pointers and Guy’s effort was paid off with a couple of baskets. Danny landed a pair from the free throw line and John was still finding a jump shot that worked. The Hornets were making too many fouls though and Atlas made them pay from the line every time.

The Hornets will have a lot to learn if they are to reverse this result in their home fixture.

Top Scorer: - Barney - 10 points

Best Player: - Send your votes to Gregg

Best Basket: - Andy picks up a lose ball steps around a defender and reverses in.

Must Improve: - Patience in offence and I wasn’t impressed with 2 Technicals!