Surrey Scorchers 84-80 Worcester Wolves

Worcester Wolves failed to follow up the excitement of Friday’s BBL Cup win over Manchester Giants when falling to an 80-84 British Basketball League defeat at Surrey Scorchers on Sunday.

Wolves trailed for large periods of the match, often falling behind by double figures. But they still managed to drag the scoreboard back to a 77-77 tie with just two minutes left. However, a slew of missed free throws and an afternoon of wayward shooting meant they just missed out on victory.

Coach Paul James was calling for a time out six minutes into the match with his side already 8-20 behind. An Ashton Khan outside attempt went badly awry and Surrey defenders were first to secure the rebound, leading to a triumphant fast-break dunk from the hosts’ Darryl Palmer.

Wolves’ shooting woes continued into the second quarter. By half-time just a dozen of a whopping 35 shot attempts had hit the mark. In the meantime a couple of former Worcester favourites, Caylin Raftopoulas and Alex Owumi, had both tasted success from distance.

Looking up at a 33-48 half-time deficit, Wolves now began to make an impact. Several full-court presses led to several Surrey turnovers. George Beamon, Trayvon Palmer and Jermel Kennedy all got their hands in the way of their opponents, slashing the arrears to a respectable 58-64 entering the final quarter.

Again, a series of missed shots and a failure to capitalise at the foul-line threatened to put the match out of the visitors’ reach at 69-78 with four minutes remaining.
Finally, three-pointers from Parrish and Palmer found their target to level the match. But Owumi also found the net with a triple. After Khan split a pair of free throws and Beamon was unable to stay in bounds when trying to hold onto possession, the afternoon was over.

Beamon topped the scoring with 25 points, with his fellow Americans Parrish and Palmer tallying 21 and 15 points respectively.

At the final count, Wolves had failed on a telling ten of 27 free throw attempts, a statistic confirmed as significant by James, saying:

“Obviously that sort of return is unacceptable and meant that we didn’t pressure Surrey’s leads when we should have.

“We dug ourselves too big a hole in the first half and although we very nearly climbed out of it the damage had already been done.”

Wolves will now face the challenge of travelling to high-flying Newcastle Eagles next Friday, before returning to the University of Worcester Arena on Friday 27 October to greet Cheshire Phoenix.

“We’ll have plenty of work to do this week. We certainly cannot afford to have another first twenty minutes like we did today,” added James.

Image credit: Razorlight Imagery