Worcester Wolves 91-96 Bristol Hurricanes

Friday November 17th 

By Colin Taylor

Worcester Wolves and Bristol Hurricanes bumped heads in an overtime thriller to entertain a bumper crowd at the University of Worcester Arena on Friday.

After a back-and-forth first half Wolves began to flounder, falling into a double-digit hole before hauling themselves back into a 79-79 tie at the end of regulation time.

Bristol regained the upper hand during the five minutes of added time to take a 96-91 success but Worcester coach Dean Blake was still moved to applaud his team’s competitive spirit.

“We showed character to come back into the match,” said Blake. “We gave a good account of ourselves in not giving up, although we didn’t quite have that little bit of composure at critical moments to complete the job.”

“I felt Bristol were there for the taking. Nevertheless we learnt a lot about ourselves today and now need to take that knowledge forward.”

Hurricanes’ lively guard Romain Neufville slotted in a quick eight points to push his side into an early 11-6 lead but was then dispossessed at half-court by Humberto Ferreira, allowing an easy layup for Jacob Dearman.

More turnovers soon followed and when Bristol failed to inbound the ball correctly Dearman sank a three-pointer to give Wolves their first advantage of the evening at 15-13 with three minutes remaining in the opening quarter.

Playmaker Peter Palmer bounced into the action with a swift trio of scores to maintain a 30-29 edge for the hosts at midway through the second period.

By half-time it was Bristol’s turn to hold sway at 43-39.

With Neufville again leading the way and ex-BBL veteran Daniel Edozie having a finger in every pie the visitors accelerated into a commanding 65-47 lead.

Zak Riabi came to the fore with consecutive triples, restricting Hurricanes advantage to 67-57 entering the last quarter.

The scoreboard ticked onwards to 72-57 before Worcester drew a line in the sand as Emmanuel Yeboah now took over the scoring spotlight.

Bristol twice committed unsportsmanlike fouls as they struggled to prevent Ferreira thrusting to the basket. When Yeboah froze defenders to hand off to Ferreira Wolves were finally back in front at 77-76 with just over a minute to go.

A pair of Yeboah free throws put matters to 79-77 with just 12 seconds remaining and brought over a thousand spectators to their feet before the wily Edozie replied to force overtime and deflate the atmosphere.

The visitors carried their uplift into grabbing the opening seven points when play restarted. More Riabi three-pointers gave brief hope for the hosts but were insufficient to overturn proceedings.

Yeboah led the statistics with a 25 points, ten rebounds double-double performance. Riabi and Ferreira contributed 19 and 17 points respectively.

Wolves now have a couple of road games on their schedule. First off is a trip to Myerscough Basketball Academy next Sunday 26 November for a 4pm tip off, followed by a visit the Sunday after to Teesside Lions.

Wolves return to the University of Worcester Arena on Saturday 09 December to welcome table-topping Manchester Magic.