Hornets: 93

High Peak: 66

Hornets turn around their cup defeat against a weakened Storm.

Matches between the Hornets and the Storm are normally tight affairs but this season has seen a big victory in the cup for the Storm and now a big victory in the league by the Hornets. Hornets had brought a weakened squad and the team tactics from the Hornets were laid out at the start of the match as intensity - especially on the known scorers for the Storm (Green, Phillips and Mycock). Tom Lee started as he meant to carry on with a trade mark 3 pointer to finish off a slick passing offence. Sam Barnard and Guy Johnson found some space inside for some well worked baskets and Andy Sienkiewicz picked up both points from the line. The Storm were matching the scoring at this stage helped by some sloppy passing from the Hornets but the Hornets were able to feed fresh players constantly onto the court and the foul count was starting to rise quickly against the Storms 3 key players. Andy Rushton drove in for easy points and then scored from the line for the extra. A jump shot from Guy finished the quarter with the Hornets up by 1 point but the Storm had already run into serious foul trouble.

With the Storm Centre (Phillips) having to sit out Barney now found lots of room inside to showcase his talents and John Whelan also found this a source of points. Tom continued to nail 3 pointers and Tush and Neil Hawkins found that off the drive they either scored or were fouled. The Storm bench players were playing well but slowly the Hornets were edging ahead and were still using all their bench. Hornets were 5 up at half time.

Tom now turned on a shooting show - although he made a mistake as one of his first 3 shots was only a two pointer! Hornets quickly established a comfortable lead and now every player worked on upping their defensive intensity. Danny Wareham wriggled though the Storm defence for a left handed lay up  and Sam Bithell and Paul Coleman also picked up points from driving in. Tush was landing points regularly and the Hornets were up by 14 with the Storm still picking up fouls.

Q4 saw the Hornets “press” the defence and they went on a 15-2 spree with scores coming from inside and outside. Storm players were now fouling out and they finished the match with only 5 eligible players. It was fitting that Guy finished the match with a 2+1 as he appeared at times to apply a press defence to all of their players at the same time.

Top Scorer: - Tom - 23 points

Best Player: - Tom - 7 x 3 pointers in only 20 minutes of court time. Guy Johnson - was everywhere and made a number of steals. Danny Wareham - best game of the season by far (so far).

Best Basket: - Simple sideline fast break - 3 passes before a cut back pass to Tush to finish at the rim - Coach’s delight!

Must Improve: - Sloppy passes leading to turnovers (Gary has it on video this time!)