BBL: Newcastle return to winning ways over Surrey

Newcastle Eagles bounced back from last weekend’s away double-header defeats with an easy 104-73 victory over Surrey United.

Every player of Fab Flournoy’s side managed to get over a quarter’s worth of action at Sport Central and dominated inside and at both ends of the court off the boards.

Ceslovas Kucinskas featured for the entire forty minutes for United, but his double-double performance of 17 points and 15 rebounds was the only positive of the night for the visitors.

The first quarter saw Newcastle stamp their authority on the game, but Surrey did put the scares into the home side keeping the scores tight for a large part of the opening period, but Darius Defoe and Malik Cooke took control of matters in hand.

It was a closer affair in the second period, and whilst the Eagles extended their lead, Surrey will have taken hope from the fact they pulled points back just before half-time.

After the break, Surrey were able to carry on somewhat of a momentum, but were eventually put to the sword as Newcastle stretched out and closed out the game in the last fifteen minutes.

Cooke will have been more than happy with his improved showing from Sunday night in Chester, where he hit just 8% of his field goals, turning things around by scoring 34 points with 67% accuracy – not to mention an outstanding 14 rebounds and seven steals to boot.

Both teams are back in action on Sunday night in the BBL Championship.

Surrey pay their second visit of the season to the Northgate Arena to face Cheshire Phoenix, whilst the North East derby will be played out at Newton Aycliffe as the Eagles make the short trip to Durham Wildcats.