Durham Wildcats 91-98 Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves will be relieved to return from a long winter journey up to the North East with two British Basketball League points in the bag. Their 98-91 Sunday afternoon victory against the Durham Wildcats avenges their season-opening defeat and keeps them in the hunt for a top-four spot in the table.
The Wolves struggled to get past their hosts in the early going, but an explosion of scoring in the last twelve minutes of the game finally saw them gain the upper hand.

Arturas Masiulis for the Wolves and veteran guard Ralph Bucci for the Wildcats contributed five points apiece to see the teams level at 11-11 by midway through the first quarter. By the close of the period Bucci had doubled his points total and his side led 24-20.

Scores from Wildcats’ forward pairing of Mike Baldarelli and Samuel Johnson increased the advantage to 28-20 before Kai Williams opened his account with consecutive scores to bring Wolves back to 30-27. When Arnas Kazlauskas sank his first three-pointer to edge the game closer at 32-30 it was enough for Durham to call a timeout.

With two minutes of the half remaining the home advantage had widened to 43-34 and it was the turn of Worcester coach Paul James to call for a break in proceedings. The last five scoring plays of the half were shared between by Wolves’ Stan Ocitti and Wildcats’ British guard Keith Page, taking the home side into the locker rooms 48-41 ahead.

Alex Owumi nabbed the first of his 20 second-half points to once more pull the Wolves back into contention, trailing 50-47, but again Durham answered straight back. Towards the close of the third period a triple from Baldarelli saw his side with a nine-point cushion at 66-57, before late replies from Kazlauskas and Sherrad Prezzie-Blue brought the game back into the balance at 66-63.

The visitors’ momentum carried over into the last quarter of the afternoon as Williams nailed two free throws then played his part in harassing his opponents into failing to take a shot in the permitted 24 seconds. Ocitti then buried a shot from distance that finally pushed the Wolves in front at 66-68.
Worcester were not content to merely edge ahead, but proceeded to turn the screw on their hosts when further triples from Kazlauskas and Williams finalised a blistering 19-0 run to leave Durham shell-shocked and trailing at 66-76 with six minutes to go.

The damage was too much for the Wildcats to repair and for the remainder of the game they were unable to get close to the Wolves. In the dying minutes Durham tried vainly to slow the clock by committing fouls but, for the most part, the resultant free throws were duly converted to seal a fine comeback victory for the Wolves.

Paul James was relieved to see his team finally come good, saying: “This was a hard-fought win. Durham shot the lights out early, and we looked like we had not played in a while. However we re-grouped at half-time, changed a few things, and played with a lot more energy at both ends of the floor.”
“This was always going to be tricky game, but we came through it well as a team”, he added.

Owumi led the Worcester scorers with 22 points. Ocitti and Masiulis made significant contributions in both scoring and rebounding with Ocitti tabbing 19 points and nine rebounds, and Masiulis registering 17 points and ten rebounds. Bucci top-scored for Durham with 22 points.

Wolves will now look forward to getting back to their home court at the University of Worcester to take on Surrey Heat this Friday (tip off 7.30pm).