Hornets: 76

Canute 2: 67

Hornets lock down the defence to ease past Canute 2

The Hornet Defence in the paint was excellent all night, a pleasing point as this was the focus of the previous night’s training session. Canute2 did pose a threat with long range shooting but the Hornets quickly dried this up to keep Canute to below 50 points in the match.

Q1 set the tempo for the game. Guy Johnson and John Whelan were unstoppable close in getting points or fouled most times they got possession. Steve Arnold also grabbed points from the free throw line after being fouled on a drive. Canute switched their defence to a zone to stiffle the Hornet inside threat but this just allowed Tom Lee to show off his shooting talent grabbing a couple of well worked 3 pointers. John scored two jump shots in quick succession to give the Hornets a 9 point lead although this was pegged back to 5 points at the quarter end with some long shots from Canute.

The Hornets completely dominated Q2 allowing Canute to score jut 7 in the quarter. Andy Sienkiewicz proved he was unstoppable inside and Guy continued to score. Hornets ran some of their play patterns to allow Sam Bithell to drive past his player to finish ring high and Sam and Tom continued to rain baskets from way out.

The contest was effectively over at half time as the Hornets already had a 20 point lead. Q3 produced scrappy basketball from both teams as a number of unforced errors were made. Only 5 points  were scored by both teams in the first 5 minutes. Hornets called a time out and settled the offence to Now get shots landing from Steve and Tom. Guy rattled more in from close range and Canute needed a buzzer beater 3 pointer to keep Hornets lead down to 26.

Neil Hawkins raced in a typical guard lay up to start Q4, closely followed by Sam showing he could do the same. Gary Masson banked one of his trade mark jump shots. John, Steve and Neil all provided extra work for the scorer while the defence remained resolute keeping Canute down to 8 in the quarter and squeezing the life out of the game.

Top Scorer: - Guy - 21 Points

Best Player: - Guy - his offence work was unstoppable & Steve who played excellent defence and landed a couple of excellent baskets.

Best Basket: - John beats two rebounders to tip the ball into the air then beats the same two again to tap the ball to guy to drive in.

Must Improve: - Turnovers - we were lucky the match wasn’t tight as at one stage there were 4 Turnovers in 2 minutes.