Basketball: Cannons pile on the misery for Neptunes
Plymouth Cannons 85 Northampton Neptunes 83
Neptunes led for practically the whole game before having the win snatched from under their noses in the dying minutes.
Saturday's defeat saw the return of player-coach Mark Spatcher, who helped give the team the missing part of the jigsaw that they were missing in terms of their shape and balance.
Northampton jumped into a commanding first quarter lead despite missing starting 6ft 9in centre Nathan Wilson who was out with a bout of flu, the Neptunes were also without Knight and Beckett due to personal reasons.
The Neptunes' running game was causing the southern side all kinds of problem in the first quarter as they dominated proceeding,
Joe Reynoso, Spatcher and Sharrad Prezzie-Blue all gave quick score to help give the Neptunes a double digit lead.
Midway through the second quarter the Neptunes drew further ahead after a three-pointer from Spatcher and three consecutive steals from American import player Prezzie-Blue.
The Neptunes looked to have broken the back of the game after going up by 19 points.
To the Cannons' credit they made some tough three pointers and continued to hang in and fight to narrow the gap which they did as the half finished 47-36 in favour of the Neptunes.
In the third quarter, the foul count was beginning to mount again the Neptunes causing them to switch to a zone as Shafiq Omar picked up his fifth foul, while Reynoso had four and both Spatcher and Prezzie-Blue each had three personals.
Despite this, the Neptunes continued to lead after a couple of well-worked scores from French forward Francis Tebo as the scores sat at 68-61.
In the fourth quarter the Neptunes continued to lead all the way down until the last couple of minutes.
By this time the Neptunes had lost Reynoso to his fifth foul while Spatcher, Prezzie-Blue were both on their fourth.
A couple of missed calls by the officials, followed by a travel call on Tebo saw the Cannons' great escape complete as the Neptunes went down by two points.
Top scorers for the Neptunes were Reynoso with 28 points, Prezzie-Blue hit 19 points and Spatcher weighed with 18 on his return.
Neptunes are back in action this Saturday when they take on the Aston Athletic in the final game before the Christmas break. Tip off is at 6.30pm at Lings Forum Leisure Centre.
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Weather for Northampton
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -6 C to 1 C
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