The Spinners were so close to the perfect weekend, but after starting the league campaign off with a win, and narrowly losing to one of the UK’s top teams, Coach Gayle’s taking the positives.
London Westside 81-68:
On Saturday the Spinners started their division 2 campaign against London Westside. Both teams started brightly with the lead exchanging hands frequently in the first half. In the second quarter Spinners started to pull away behind some great shooting from Houghton and Estrada and some solid inside play from Vaughan.
In the third the Spinners extended their lead to 20, but Westside hit back narrowing the gap on a 9-0 run to cut the lead to 8. But that was as close as the London side got, as the Spinners saw out the victory 81-68. Houghton led all scorers with 20, Estrada had 13. Spinners assistant Coach John Lindsay was pleased with the result: “It was a good win and it’s nice to start the league campaign with a win. We weren’t great and London made things difficult for us but we spread our minutes and got everyone involved which was good. We will have to improve as the season progresses but we’re young and I think we’ve got a lot more to offer.”
Bradford Dragons 92-96:
Bradford are a well-established and talented Division 1 side with lots of experience. Whilst being a division above the Spinners, and one of the best teams in the UK, the young Lancashire players felt like they could give Bradford some trouble.
Early Bradford pressure left the Spinners trailing by 6 after the first quarter but they responded emphatically with a huge second quarter swing 29-18 to go into the half time break with a promising 47-41 lead. At the start of the third the Spinners came out strong again and two three pointers from Josh Houghton extended the lead to ten.
Bradford fought back strongly and veteran Jason Swaine was given just enough room to sink consecutive back to back threes to cut the deficit during a 9-0 run from Bradford. Kenny Ogunneye emphatically stopped the slide with a huge slam dunk that got the Spinners back on track and through the latter part of the third quarter the lead changed hands multiple times. The quarter finished with a slender 1 point advantage for the Spinners.
In the fourth quarter Bradford’s experience shone a little brighter than Lancashire talented youth as they carved out an 8 point lead in the opening 3 minutes. The Spinners responded well and closed the gap but could never quite get back on terms and finished just 4 points shy, 92-96.
Head Coach Gayle who top scored with 24 points and 6 assists was disappointed with the result but pleased overall with his young side: “It’s a tough loss to take as I felt we could of won the game. But we’re a young team and we’ve learnt a lot from it. Bradford closed out the game very professionally. I think we’ve shown our potential and hopefully we’ll continue to get better. We played well in spells against a well organised London Westside yesterday, but I think we stepped up to another level today which was really good.”
“Most of our guys are under 23 and it’s games like this that help us to develop and learn. I was pleased with the energy and effort but we have to improve defensively and limit the mental lapses. We made too many mistakes and misses too many rotations defensively. That has to improve as we move forwards. Maybe fatigue played a part given it was our second game of the weekend, Bradford were perhaps just a little fresher and their coaching staff had chance to watch us on Saturday too, so overall I’m really delighted with the lads and excited for the future.”
Bradford’s Coach Chris Mellor was relieved to come away with a win; “I knew it was going to be a tough battle and I’m just pleased to come away with the win. We weren’t great defensively, either in effort or intelligence, but thankfully we put the decisive run together at the start of the fourth to open the game up. They (Lancashire Spinners) are going to be a major force in division two this year and they have stacks of talent, so all-in-all it’s a good win for us.”
Spinners next home game will be on Saturday 8th of November against the high flying Derbyshire Arrows, 5:40 tip off at the Castle Leisure Centre in Bury. Details can be found on www.lancashirespinners.co.uk
