Worcester Wolves 84-77 Surrey Scorchers

Friday 05 March 2021

Worcester Wolves made it a hat-trick of consecutive wins as they pushed Surrey Scorchers aside 84-77 at the University of Worcester Arena on Friday.

Scorchers had the upper hand in close-to-the-basket exchanges to take 45-36 half-time control before Wolves roared back to overturn the lead in the third quarter and hold on for victory and seventh place in the British Basketball League.

Worcester initially found difficulty in containing Surrey’s one-time NBA draft-pick Ryan Richards who notched more than half of his side’s 10-2 total by the second minute of the evening.

Mike Parks took a hand-off from Jordan Williams to begin an impressive comeback. Brandon Anderson got into his game and Micah Elan and Maarten Bouwknecht both sank triples amongst a 15-0 surge from the hosts.

The teams entered the second quarter tied up at 22-22 but broke apart again once Richards re-asserted himself and Wolves failed to take care of their possessions.

The most-telling statistics by half-time were a 32-14 points in the painted area advantage for Scorchers and an unhappy ten turnovers on the Wolves’ side of the ledger, confirming superiority for the visitors.

However, it was an entirely different picture when action recommenced after the interval. Surrey turned the ball over on their first two plays and Elijah Burns drew back his bow to find the target for a double of three-pointers.

Bouwknecht produced a solo drive to close Surrey’s lead to just 49-48 and then dumped off to Williams for Worcester to move in front. A fired-up Burns harried his opponent into a shot-clock violation and a Lamarr Kimble crossover increased the torment.

Burns drained another triple at the start of the final period to keep his side 64-62 ahead. With five minutes remaining Wolves clung to a 74-73 edge.

The decisive moments came within the last three minutes when Scorchers guard Tony Hicks was penalised for a clumsy travel while, contrastingly, Anderson displayed a dribble worthy of a Harlem Globetrotter in retaining control of the ball when slipping to the floor before being fouled.

Both Surrey coach Creon Raftopoulos and his bench drew technical fouls after haranguing officials, resulting in a quartet of made free-throws from Anderson for a     game-deciding 82-73 lead.

Anderson led the scoring with 22 points, followed by an 18 points and 11 rebounds double-double performance for Williams.

Bouwknecht supplied 15 points and Kimble ten while Burns continued to bed into the team with a nine points and eight rebounds output.

“We need to show more poise and be more sensible at certain junctures,” remarked coach Matt Newby. “It got a bit ugly in places but the players stepped up after half-time to give us a good win.”

After completing a challenging spell of four games in eight days, Wolves will now take a welcome break before returning to action with a double of road trips. First up is a visit to Sheffield Sharks next Friday 12 March (6pm), followed by a trek up to Glasgow Rocks on Sunday afternoon (5pm).