Birmingham Mets 70-73 Worcester Wolves

Saturday 20 November 2021 – By Colin Taylor

The form-book was very nearly overturned when unbeaten Worcester Wolves were only able to scrape a 73-70 success at bottom-of-the-table Birmingham Mets in National Basketball League play on Saturday.

As has become a pattern over their last few outings, Wolves rattled to a comfortable advantage, in this case 63-39 at the start of the fourth quarter, before allowing their opponents to revive and keep the outcome in the balance.

Leading light Lucas McGregor was missing through injury and was soon joined on the side-lines by Shaun Parren-Rackley after he took a blow to the face in the early moments of the match.

His replacement Tom Grayling revelled in his introduction to the action when converting a Wilfrid Santhe assist into a two-handed dunk, aiding a 22-8 first period Worcester lead.

Matei Balteanu dictated the visitors’ scoring over the remainder of the first half.   Santhe turned down his own chance to score and instead handed off to Balteanu, prior to a couple of hooks, and the conversion of a Santhe length-of-the-court pass, by the Romanian power forward.

A 37-23 half-time gap widened after three-pointers from Austin Payne and Ian Vivero-Rodriguez.

Payne produced a steal and race-away dunk while Balteanu again came to the fore with a take-no-prisoners thundering slam over flailing Birmingham defenders.

But a near-six minute scoreless spell allowed the Mets a way back into the contest. A 10-3 home run forced a Wolves timeout with four minutes left in the match.

The break in play did nothing to halt the hosts’ momentum as a swift four points brought matters to 64-53.

The last half-minute of the evening saw Worcester clinging to a 72-68 edge before Balteanu was whistled for an offensive push and Birmingham sank both resultant free throws.

Another failed attack brought Mets possession of the ball with just five seconds to go and the chance of a game-winner. However, Balteanu was able to jab his hand in the way of the inbound pass and deny an upset victory.

Balteanu dominated the scoring with his 29 points. Payne was the only other double-digit scorer with 12.

Coach Dean Blake accepted that Wolves had again not played at their best for a full forty minutes, saying: “We got another win, but again we could have been a bit smarter when we were put under pressure in the late stages.”

Wolves now have a fortnights break before welcoming title-rivals Stoke-on-Trent Knights to the University of Worcester Arena on Saturday 04 December (7pm).

“We’ll now get extra time to prepare to meet Stoke,” added Blake. “We need this break. If we include our BUCS University programme we’ve had a lot of games recently, with a lot of travel involved.

“We’ll benefit from the rest and the chance to get players recovered and back out on the floor.”