Hornets: 54

Tropics 2: 138

5 Man Hornets Crushed by Tropics2

Hornets have an 18 man squad so to see only 5 turn up to play the best team in the league is a huge disappointment. The 5 knew it was going to be a tough night and weren’t surprised when the athletes from the Tropics launched a full court press at them. But the battle was joined and the 5 Hornet players all deserved a medal for a truly heroic performance.

Tropics started with a 3 pointer and went on to score another 11 during the evening as the Hornets could only effectively play zone defence. But Kris Wood hit back with a superb turnaround jump shot and whilst the Tropics practised their fast break drills Andy Sienkiewicz also had time to grab rebounds and score from close in. The veteran Gary Masson proved there was life in the legs as he raced onto a loose ball, collected and finished and there was time for Andy to add more points towards the end of the quarter. But the Tropics had scored 39 points in the quarter and the Hornets were on their way to the biggest ever defeat for the club.

Stomachs drooped but heads never did for the Hornets as a quarter of full effort was given and the Hornets only lost  quarter2  25-18. Andy, Kris and Gary tough out rebounds under the boards and Neil Hawkins and Gregg Pickard chased at the front of the zone. Kris racked up shots and drives and Neil chipped in with a long range 3 pointer. Kris showed off in the last two minutes scoring a 3 pointer, two frees and a drive.

The effort told in quarter 3 as the rested players from the Tropics kept coming at the Hornets. Tropics seemed to have all of the possession and the Hornets didn’t score at all for the first 5 minutes. Masson and Pickard appeared to try an unusual technique of sucking all the oxygen from the arena into their lungs to deny any to the opposition, but this didn’t work! Kris and Andy found some room to score and Neil again planted a long range 3 but 2 long shots from the Tropics ended the quarter with the Tropics now on over 100 points and one quarter to play.

The Hornets set targets to keep themselves motivated and one of them was to pass the season low score so far and they found that by continuing to play structured basketball they could still find gaps if they worked hard enough. Andy scored an outrageous around the back drive and Neil picked up 2 from the line after a forceful drive.  Gregg got onto the scoresheet with a commanding drive towards the end beating 3 players before reversing to score ring high.

All 5 players left with their dignity intact as they had all scored their season best points (or equalled best) and against a tough defence had gone past the target of this not being the season low score.

Top Scorer: - Kris - 22 points

Best Player: - All 5 players get a mention for this one - everyone gave everything they had.

Best Basket: - Turn around jump shot 3 pointer

Must Improve: - Getting more players to matches