Middlesbrough Lions basketball match report

Lions Make It a Triple Over Vikings

at York College, 14/02/10

photos by Wayne Beadle

York Vikings U16 52-69 Middlesbrough Lions U16

This year's Valentines Day fixture saw the Lions travel to York College for the third and final fixture between these teams for this season. The team were travelling without the full Squad as Oliver Clarke and David Budd were unavailable and Daniel Chirnside travelled to offer support and advice although injured. The whole squad and management team wish him a speedy recovery and hope to see him back on the court before the end of the season.

The game started with the Lions dictating the pace pushing up with a half court press, and unsettling the Vikings offence the Lions started with an impressive 8-0 run. The starting five of Jordan Nicholls, Shane Beadle, Marshall Paterson, James Parkin and Dan Brown all registered on the score sheet in the first quarter Chris Chapman checked in half way through the quarter and added a different dimension to the defence with his pace, the team were playing some fine, composed basketball and finished the quarter 22-12 up and it would have been more if influential Viking Will freeman had not hit a long range buzzer beater!

The second quarter continued in the same vein with the Home team unable to break down the defence and the Lions rampant offensively pouring in nine unanswered points and not allowing York to register a point until the 7th minute of the quarter. With the only worrying issue being the amount of fouls the big men were picking up a change in defence to M2M and fresh legs in the form of Alan Slasor were called for. Slasor immediately picked up Vikings main threat Freeman and locked him down with tenacious defence. The 6th minute of the second quarter saw the welcome return of Phil Findlay who has been out for a long period due to prolonged illness, despite his time out he has not lost any of his trade mark energy and immediately was amongst the action diving on a loose ball stealing it from the York point guard.
The half ended with the Lions up 39-19.

The second half continued in the same vein with the two year young Hamza Askari checking in and immediately setting about his defensive duties with aggression and pace. Although the scores were more even in this quarter it was evident that the Home teams spirit had been broken, the only threat being Freeman who amassed 21 points throughout the game to top score. The lead was extended to 24 points entering the final quarter, which took on the manner of a training session with the Lions executing plays and experimenting with defences. The final score was a convincing 69-52 win the whole squad had contributed to a clinical and professional performance; there were fine individual performances of note that of Patterson who accumulated his biggest total (16) since joining the club and played some fine defence and Parkin who again hit a season high 15, Brown added 17 and Nicholls (12) was the other Lion who got into double figures. This really was a fine display of team basketball and each member of the squad deserves credit for the effort displayed.

Top scorers

Lions: Brown 17, Patterson 16, Parkin 15, Nicholls 12, Beadle 5, Chapman 4