North East hospitality

Sheffield Sharks vs Gateshead Tornadoes

12th February 2010

Tip Off 12.15, Whickham Sports Centre

Sharks 2616 2215 79

Tornadoes 1710 9 6 44

Although the travel to the North East is long, at least the travellers know that a warm hospitable welcome meets them in Gateshead, so we’d like to thank their club for this. Unfortunately the temperature of the hall was not as warm as the welcome but at least the players could run about to overcome this.

The starting five was David, Tyler, Marcus, Josh and Connor. We were looking for a controlled defensive game with the strength of the Sharks punishing the opposition in attack, would we get it? Connor, Josh and Marcus eased them to a 7-2 lead by the third minute, but then, somewhat similar to previous matches they failed to kick in. Tyler is a player that adds a lot to the team and he can take route one to the basket which he soon demonstrated. He shortly followed this up in a similar fashion and things looked OK. However the Sharks just could not capitalise on their dominance and it was their own fault. A series of silly mistakes let Gateshead into the game and soon the score was only 15-12 to the Sharks. Eddy was brought on to try and shore up the middle and he also helped to move the score on. He was shortly joined by George and ConorDS who both had an immediate impact by bringing the attack down the left into play. Marcus then managed to pick up his third foul which meant Kenneth came on for the last 3 minutes. Kenneth soon showed his value to the team by being the only player to get both offensive and defensive rebounds and his reward was the last basket of the quarter. So 26—17 at the end of quarter 1, again not great and in a way quite flattering to the Sharks.

George kick-started the second quarter with an excellent shot to get him on the scoresheet. Michael was soon into the game too. The biggest statistic is that nearly half of the Sharks’ defensive rebounds for the match were made in this quarter which tells a story. Kenneth was the main contributor but with the names of Eddy, David and Tyler collecting rebounds it shows their importance to the team. Marcus came on for 51 seconds to make sure he got his fourth foul and to be honest there is not much more to write home about. The 16-10 quarter score also illustrates this so let’s move on.

Luckily the Sharks started to step up the pace and pressure in the third quarter so there was a bit more entertainment for the travellers. In a game littered with steals from both sides we noted Eddy, Tyler and Michael getting into the act with these. For those that read last week’s report it is these players that do the damage in their own half of the court that then release those at the basket end to score (you know who you are!). There are also those players that chip in with baskets when needed to give the Sharks that bit of an edge and here we single out ConorDS and George. Not forgetting Kenneth whose 7 points made him the quarter’s top scorer. It looked more like the team we knew and a 22-9 quarter score highlighted this.

With the game won the Sharks played out the last quarter with a bit more confidence. Again steals were the order of the day as both George and Michael took possession to charge up the court and getting the points adding to the excitement factor. Eddy was also finally getting his eye in with a trio of baskets. In the rebounding statistics another telling statistics from a team player with ConorDS coming second in the rebound count.

In the end another game where the Sharks didn’t play at their best but had enough to ease past Gateshead. As well as being hospitable we have also seen an improvement in the opponents’ game over the three fixtures, they had a couple of great plays to illustrated this.

We know there are still a couple of matches left before the play offs start and even then there are many matches to play, but already the supports seem to be looking at a potential quarter final against Manchester Magic. Will this be the case and will the Sharks raise their game as the stakes get higher? Return next week for the next instalment.

Team and stats.

This week we have the stats as follows: (Total rebounds, Offensive rebounds, Defensive rebounds) (points) ordered by the total number of rebounds.

Connor Dixon (16, 10, 6) (16), Kenneth Nwose (14, 6, 8) (11), Marcus Welsh (12, 4, 8) (13), Tyler Gayle (4, 3, 1) (9), Eddy Brownell (3, 1, 2) (6), Conor D’Souza Kelly (3, 2, 1) (2), Josh Edwards (2, 1, 1) (11), George Naylor (1, 0, 1) (6), David Frost (2, 1, 1) (2), Michael Carnall (0,0,0) (3)