Pole Position

Sheffield Junior Sharks Vs Doncaster Danum Eagles

7th March 2010, 12.00 Midday

Doncaster Danum College

Sharks19 1727 3396

Eagles 9 1516 4 44

As the Grand Prix season draws near, one thing was sure the Sharks were assured to go into the play offs topping the North East league. However, this report could have been written beforehand as each U14 match seems to have fallen into 2 categories this year. Plan A is to come out quick and then fade away, Plan B is to start off slow and pick up speed. Each Plan has to have a bad quarter and all players get good court time. Oh and if we’re lucky Eddy may throw in a few threes

So which would it be this time? ConnorD’s couple of baskets seemed to imply the Sharks would get going quickly. However was a bit of a red herring, as although Marcus and Josh contributed they couldn’t quite pull away. Montell came on and took a good basket and Eagles replied with a trey. At 7 minutes gone the lead was 14-7 and a bit more had been expected. Tyler started to hurry things along with a trey and the ConorDS showed steady nerves to get 2 from 2 at the charity line. It was a 10 point lead at the end of the quarter and so looked more like a plan B game.

In the second quarter the Sharks thought they’d better get the bad quarter out of the way. A six point run from the Eagles at the beginning closed the gap to six points and the team at the bottom of the North East league were sensing an upset. Josh was sent on and he decided to get things going with a personal rally of 8 points. Marcus, Kenneth and Tyler joined in but the Eagles were still pushing hard. The Sharks tried their best to throw it away by missing lay ups but failed to lose the quarter and had to do with a two point advantage. Not great but pulling away.

So the second half got underway and by this time Marko had made an appearance on the bench. If things were going to go true to form the Sharks needed to gel. Luckily they did. This time it was ConnorD who decided to take the game into his own hands and powered the score forward with a run of 10 points. There were still some holes in the defence that needed plugging but a good plan is always to outscore the opposition. Kenneth started to get his rebounding act together and Marko came on and made a telling contribution at both ends of the court with his rebounding duties. Then in the 3rd quarter with three minutes on the clock Eddy got a three. Marcus showed that his eye was now in by getting 2 from 2 free throws. All in all a better performance from the team.

The final stanza saw everything falling into place. Eddy started the quarter of with a couple of threes to give him his successive set of three threes in a match and then to copy ConnorD he immediately took a couple of baskets for a run of 10. George was starting to make some excellent cuts into the paint but rather than being rewarded with baskets he was supplying offensive rebounds for others to take the points. Marko again was showing his contributions but this time by getting 4 great baskets. ConorDS also found himself on the score sheet for this quarter. Montell and Michael also showed their contributions with lots of forays at the basket. The defensive plan had also kicked in limiting the opposition to only 4. At the end of the game, David, who had shown his normal strong commitment throughout the game popped up and claimed his own three.

So, the court time showing its dividends by the end of this match and again an all round performance that lines them up for the play offs. The first round will see them playing the fourth team in the North West league that should be a good starter on the journey. No need to panic and it seems as though General Garnet and Commander Frost have been planning a war campaign and seen winning the battles as a pre cursor to the impending apocalypse. Either that or the report writer is has gone metaphor mad.

Enjoy the break lads, hostilities (in the nicest sense) resume in 3 weeks.

Team and scorers

Connor Dixon (20), Eddy Brownell (15), Josh Edwards (14), Marcus Welsh (12), Marko Backovic (8), Kenneth Nwose (6), Tyler Gayle (6), David Frost (5), Montell Gordon (4), Conor D’Souza Kelly (4), Michael Carnall (2), George Naylor