Newcastle Eagles 107-85 Worcester Wolves

Friday 02 November 2012

Worcester Wolves had no answer to a barrage of accurate outside shooting from Newcastle Eagles up in the north-east on Friday evening, succumbing to a 107-85 defeat in their BBL Cup quarter-final tie.

Three-point baskets from Charles Smith and Damon Huffman opened the night’s scoring and gave a taste of what was to follow. At midway through the first quarter the Wolves had pulled back the deficit and led 12-14 after an Arturas Masiulis score. However, this was to be their last advantage of the game as a blistering trio of three-pointers in less than a minute from guard Joe Chapman blew the contest wide open at 26-16.

The Eagles ten-point cushion remained constant for the early part of the second period before more long-distance scoring from Chapman and Smith boosted their team’s lead to 39-23. A rare outside score from young Worcester forward Stuart Thomson briefly stemmed the tide, before Huffman sunk his fourth and fifth triples of the first half. A stunned Wolves side went into the break trailing 62-38, having been on the receiving end of 11 three-pointers made from only 15 attempts.

Chapman continued to have the hot hand during a 22-10 run for the hosts in the third quarter, confirming that there would be no way back for the Wolves.

The last period of the match began with scores for Smith and for Newcastle centre Darius Defoe as the night’s advantage grew to its largest at 88-49. A flurry of late baskets from Wolves’ Stan Ocitti and Alex Owumi gave some respectability to the final score-line, but it was the reigning cup-holders who made sure of their progress in the competition.

Owumi top-scored for the Wolves with 24 points, followed by Ocitti with 21 points. Huffman and Chapman led the way for the Eagles with 25 and 23 points respectively, including 13 of their team’s 15 triples.

Wolves now return to British Basketball League action when journeying to Glasgow Rocks this Sunday (tip off 5pm).