Mersey Tigers 54-86 Worcester Wolves

Friday 26 October 2012

A fortnight ago the Worcester Wolves swept to a 50-point hammering of Mersey Tigers. On Friday, up in Liverpool, the Tigers were once more convincingly beaten, albeit this time by a closer margin at 54-86.

The Wolves’ team bus only arrived shortly before tip-off after a tortuous journey up the M6 in packed half-term getaway traffic. For the first half of the game, as players stretched their limbs, the score remained close. After the interval the Wolves found it easier to assert their authority.

French centre Rudy Etilopy was in good early form, nabbing all of the Tigers’ first eight points as they kept pace with their visitors. By the end of the opening quarter the game stood at 17-25, with Wolves’ forwards Stuart Thomson and Carlos Fernandez scoring the last five points of the period.

A triple from Lithuanian forward Arnas Kazlauskas began the second quarter’s scoring. After three minutes had elapsed the Tigers trailed 19-34 following consecutive three-pointers from Thomson and from young British guard Eoghann Dover.

With a cushion established, Wolves’ coach Paul James took the opportunity to give plenty of time to his bench players, but this coincided with a Mersey fight-back. Several long-distance baskets from locally-born guard Josh McGinn and inside scoring from Etilopy helped pull the hosts back to 31-41 by the close of the first half.

With his starters re-instated to the floor the Wolves lead was quickly doubled to 33-53 after accurate shooting from Fernandez and with playmaker Alex Owumi cleverly taking charge of the ball. During the break between the third and fourth quarters a Tigers fan won both the first and second prizes in the match-night raffle; this was to be the last time any Mersey supporter would witness such good fortune as Worcester now tightened the screw on their opponents.

A 44-61 score-line was added to by triples from Owumi and Kazlauskas, two points for forward Kalil Irving and six points for Thomson. Meanwhile stifling Wolves’ defence held the home side scoreless for the first six minutes of the last period. Former Cheshire Jet Ryan Gallagher finally broke the Mersey drought to leave the match at 46-75. Back-up players on both teams were once more given time on court as the game meandered down to the eventual 54-86 outcome.

Paul James was pleased with the end-result of the match, saying: “It was a difficult start after a long journey up here. It took us until the second half to really get going. We tried to concentrate on putting right a lot of the things we didn’t do well against Leicester last week and we rebounded and executed well tonight.”

Looking ahead to the second part of Wolves’ doubleheader weekend, at the University of Worcester on Saturday against Sheffield Sharks (tip off 7pm), James commented: “I’m expecting a tougher game against Sheffield but if we execute as well as we did this evening then we will give ourselves every chance to win.”

Owumi led the Worcester scoring with 20 points, followed by Thomson and Fernandez with 15 and 14 points respectively. Etilopy topped the Mersey scorers with 15 points.