Sunday, January 22, 2006

WORCESTER Wolves remain top of English Basketball League Division One after an 87-71 victory over Teesside Mohawks.

Valdas Urbonavicius scored 23 points, Andrew Harper 19 and Colin Chiverton 16 in the home success.

After their beating of Kingston the previous week, Worcester faced Teesside who were 11th in the table.

Worcester's game started slowly but once they had found how to defend against 7ft 6ins giant Neil Fingleton, they drew out a good lead.

Teesside buried the first points of the game and Worcester struggled to cope with Fingleton early in the game.

However, Worcester began to find their feet and gradually pulled ahead of the visitors to 18-14.

Long range three-pointers from Harper and Urbonavicius helped Worcester stretch their lead to 25-15.

Chiverton sank two to open the second quarter just seconds after the restart.

Teesside gained a little ground, but then dropped further behind as Worcester's long-shooters found their range.

A shot from Ben Potts missed the basket due to the backboard being slapped by Fingleton while the shot was up, but no action was taken by the match officials.

Four minutes into the quarter, Worcester led 34-28. Wolves were undeterred and a flurry of scoring from the home side saw them increase their lead to a much safer 55-37 by the end of the quarter.

Fingleton was called for an offensive foul early in the third quarter, which Worcester quickly followed up with two from Urbonavicius.

Teesside called a time-out which their coach, Tony Hanson, spent arguing with one of the officials, leading to a technical.

Both bonuses were netted by Worcester's Matt Collins.

Minutes later, Collins was called for a foul while attempting a steal. A minor fracas ensued resulting in a double foul for Collins and Teesside's Nicholson before the latter was given a technical.

The referees awarded Worcester two free throws, both scored by Collins.

Rob Clarke sank the last points for them to close the penultimate quarter 79-47.

After around 20 seconds of play in the final quarter, Fingleton was fouled out after a chop across Clarke's neck.

Coach Josh Cooprider rested his starting five for the majority of the remainder of the quarter.

This allowed the visitors breathing space and they gradually closed the gap on Worcester who failed to score in the first eight minutes of the quarter.

As the Mohawks drew close to 10 points behind Wolves, Cooprider re-introduced his top players. Worcester's first points of the quarter came from a slam by Ty Shaw but he was then fouled out.

A number of fouls by Teesside strengthened the home side's position to 87-71.