Saturday, November 12, 2005

WORCESTER Wolves left Solent Stars out in the cold again with a fine 93-76 victory in English League Division One.

Rob Clarke (18), Andy Harper (17), Valdas Urbonavicius (17) and Ty Shaw (16) sank the most points as unbeaten Wolves defeated Solent for the third time this season.

Solent won the tip but Matt Collins stole the ball for Worcester, feeding through Ty Shaw to Andy Harper for a long two to begin the scoring though Solent replied quickly.

The rate of scoring was slow with quite a low hit rate on both sides, possibly due to the cold University of Worcester hall.

However, towards the mid-point of the quarter, Worcester began to pick up pace, leading 9-4 and they eventually closed the first quarter 19-9 up.

Clarke opened the second quarter with two off an assist from Shaw.

Danny Williams was fouled on Worcester's next offence and sunk one of his two shots.

They continued with the same pace as in the latter stages of the previous quarter and Solent struggled to keep up.

A number of steals and interceptions by Worcester players did little to assist Solent's situation.

Four minutes into the quarter, the home side led 31-15 but Solent gradually caught up with Worcester's pace.

However, they were unable to overtake them and the quarter closed at 46-29 to Worcester.

Solent started the third quarter with possession but Collins again stole the ball and went on to score a long two-pointer.

Several apparent fouls went uncalled in the first few minutes of the quarter but this barely affected Worcester's success at the basket.

When the home side called a time-out on five minutes, they led 58-41.

Solent maintained their pace and success in offence but were unable to step up sufficiently to close on Worcester.

Again, Collins delayed the final offence of the quarter with Solent slipping slightly further behind, leaving the home side with a lead of 70-49 going into the final quarter.

It opened with a foul on Clarke, who sunk both of his bonuses and Shaw added to this a few moments later with two of his own.

With Worcester leading 78-53, coach Josh Cooprider called the starting five players off the court for the final seven minutes, giving the back-up players a chance to show their skill which they managed admirably.

Clarke buried a good number of points in the last few minutes of play, powering through the Solent defence to get the Wolves top score for the game.