Leicester Warriors 87-73 Worcester Wolves

Saturday 11th November 2023

By Colin Taylor

Worcester Wolves produced a competitive match for three-quarters of their visit to Leicester Warriors on Saturday before being overrun in the last section of the contest.

A back-and-forth encounter saw Wolves 59-58 to the good with nine minutes remaining before Leicester heavily outscored their visitors to take an 87-73 triumph.

“We were competitive until the last quarter when we made too many wrong decisions,” said Worcester coach Dean Blake.

“We tried to go toe-to-toe with Leicester but we just didn’t have a rhythm for the whole game.

“We couldn’t string together consecutive baskets and we couldn’t string together consecutive stops.

“What’s really frustrating is that I don’t believe that Leicester forced mistakes from us, but that they were simply our own mistakes.”

Emmanuel Yeboah had the early hot hand, firing in the opening seven points of the evening while Warriors were held scoreless.

The hosts chipped away at the advantage to finally move ahead for the first time at 22-19 as the second quarter began.

A sequence of tight play now ensued. Wolves’ Humberto Ferreira flew forwards for a 24-24 tie with five minutes left before half-time and, after he engaged in a clever one-two with point guard Kai Rose three minutes later, the teams were still all-square at 31-31.

Entering the second half with a 38-36 edge, Worcester gave sway to enable another tied score-line.

Eben Effah profited from a Jacob Dearman assist to dunk the ball home and Zak Riabi sank consecutive three-pointers, pushing Wolves’ noses in front.

However, a barren start to the final quarter undid the earlier good work. It would take nearly four minutes for Worcester to connect from the field while, contrastingly, their hosts made hay offensively.

A demoralising two-handed slam and a follow-up triple thrust Leicester 73-62 ahead with five minutes to go and matters only spiralled further downwards as the visitors surrendered.

Yeboah and Riabi led the scoring with 23 and 14 points respectively.

Wolves return to the University of Worcester Arena this Friday 17 November (tip off 7.30pm) with the aim of subduing the Bristol Hurricanes.

“Due to the resources we’re fortunate to have at this club we face the challenge of getting everyone’s best game when they come to our arena and play in front of a big crowd,” added Blake.

“We have to be ready for that challenge and be ready to give a good account of ourselves.”