With key wingman Wayne Mears missing for Celton Manx Warriors and Ron Smith’s Turkeys still without their big inside players, both teams needed big plays from their remaining stars in their important clash near the top of the men’s basketball league table at the NSC on Thursday.
Chris Wolfendale clearly got the message as he swished a long three on the opening play of the game and the Warriors defence held the Turkeys scoreless for the first four minutes, while piling their own points thanks to the slashing drives of David Dallimore.
Paul Ellison registered the first Turkey basket with a three of his own and slowly they crept their way back into the game to trail by only four at the break. A closely-matched second quarter saw each team trying to gain an advantage but it wasn’t until the final two minutes when Wolfendale aced a hat-trick of three-pointers that Warriors extended out to a nine-point lead at the half.
Turkeys weren’t out of it by any stretch, though, and some excellent defence in the third held Warriors scoreless for five minutes but they only managed to claw back a tiny amount to leave them still seven short for the start of the final quarter. Yet another early three from Wolfendale put the dampeners on Turkeys’ fightback but through the scoring of Gavin Stephenson, Turkeys gave it their all.
A falling-out-of-bounds, clock-beating fade-away three from the peerless Wolfendale was the dagger that crushed the spirit of the Turkeys assault with a couple of minutes remaining and the game was over.
Phillies 49, NFU Marvels 41
Marvels are still seeking that elusive top-half-of-the-table scalp and Phillies were the latest team to escape with a fairly narrow win which cements their top four place as the top/bottom split for the final third of the season approaches.
Ross Ripamonti and Jim Manuel were the first-half damage dealers for the Phillies as Marvels struggled from the field. Someone woke Kyle Mills up at the half-time break, though, and he combined with AJ Suckling and Darren Cain to lead the fightback in the third but they collided with a free-scoring surge from Revi Del Rosario that kept the Phillies in front. Despite winning the fourth quarter, Marvels couldn’t quite catch the Phillies who ran out fairly comfortable winners despite only a nine-point score difference.
PokerStars 67, Manx Demolition 25
PokerStars were rocking the pinstripe look to their new uniforms in a fairly one-sided contest that gave Eric Hibbs and Fred Roman a good platform to showcase their skills to the watching island coach Colin Kirkham.
However, the much younger Demolition players did their own national squad futures no harm with a spirited display, in particular the ever-impressive Harry Brindle and the week’s star, Matthew Middleton. PokerStars were too deep, too big and too good for the youngsters on this occasion though.