Cheshire Jets 59-98 Worcester Wolves

Sunday 14 October 2012

Worcester Wolves completed a fine double of weekend victories when demolishing Cheshire Jets 98-59 in Chester on Sunday afternoon.

Just as in Saturday night’s mauling of the Mersey Tigers, Wolves’ coach Paul James was able to give plenty of court time to the less-experienced members of his squad and they responded with a series of sterling performances. Young English forward Daniel Belgrave followed up a strong 12 point outing against the Tigers with by far his best-ever display in a Wolves vest when tallying a highly-impressive 26 points against the Jets.

It was Belgrave who opened the scoring when tipping in an errant sky hook from Worcester centre Arturas Masiulis. A moment later the Wolves led by four points following a Masiulis lay-up. Kenny Moore then scored the host’s first points but these were to be their only points in the first four minutes of the game.

Worcester’s Alex Owumi soon got in on the scoring act and Belgrave quickly tallied an additional seven points to leave the visitors in front at 23-12 by the close of the first quarter.

The totals for each side had virtually doubled by half-time as the Wolves lead ballooned to 50-23. Steady scoring from Owumi was accompanied by dominance around the Worcester basket from Masiulis. At the same time Belgrave continued his hot streak, sinking a trio of long-distance shots amongst a further eleven personal points.

After Belgrave had landed his fifth three-pointer Paul James gave some relief to the exasperated Cheshire defenders when withdrawing him from action. Nevertheless, the Wolves onslaught continued as his replacement, Stuart Thomson, showed deft moves in driving to the hoop for three straight scores at the end of the third period.

A massive 71-37 advantage going into the last ten minutes of the afternoon was added to by a couple of slam dunks from forward Kalil Irving. This was enough for James to further empty his bench as Karl Noyer and Harry Turner took to the court. While Noyer and Turner both hit the mark from the outside, Thomson and Irving carried on tormenting the Jets close to the basket.

Flashes of resistance from Cheshire’s import pairing of Chez Marks and Shawn Myers were their side’s only answer to Wolves’ dominance, giving some respectability to the final 98-59 scoreline.

Paul James was once more pleased with the professionalism of his charges, stating:

“I’m very pleased with the display. We came out and played with a lot of purpose. We executed some great offence and defence.”

Referring to the performance of Belgrave he commented: “Daniel took the chance given to him to be a starter and had an outstanding game.”

Belgrave himself was modest about his impact on the game, preferring to give praise to his team-mates, saying: “We played well as a team. The veteran guys were looking for me and giving me some great opportunities to hit shots.”

Belgrave’s 26 points led the Worcester scoring, followed by 18 points from Owumi. Thomson was next-highest with 13 points on an afternoon when every player in Wolves’ 11-man squad got on the score chart. Only Marks and Myers scored in double figures for Cheshire, with 22 and 13 points respectively.

Wolves will next Saturday travel to their Midlands rivals the Leicester Riders. The next game at the University of Worcester will be on Saturday 27 October, against Sheffield Sharks.