Durham Wildcats season in review
The Durham Wildcats’ inaugural season in the BBL may not have sent sparks flying with the team finishing bottom of the BBL, but lets take a look back at the highs and the lows for the Durham team.
American giant Mario Flaherty had to wait to get his season started missing the Wildcats first game against Newcastle, but when the 6’9 centre finally got on the court the field goals and free throws started raining in.
His fellow countrymen Mike Capocci was not to be left out of the season’s scoring stats as he played every game for the Wildcats this term and notched up an impressive 433 points.
But it was certainly not all fun and games for Durham and their fans and they had to wait until a nail biting game in November to put their first two points on the board. When the Cheshire Jets came to theNewton Acyliffe Leisure Centre for the first time, Durham made it anything other than plain sailing.
The Wildcats fought back from a first quarter deficit to hold a 17 point lead at the half time interva. But Cheshire were not willing to surrender so easily and with seconds remaining in the game guard Odiba Attah sunk one of his free throws sealing the game 74-72 and sending Newton Aycliffe in to party mode.
Ralph Bucci was the stand out man for Durham in their first win and he seemed to continue that form for the remainder of the season only missing 13 free throws throughout.
The festive break was not fruitful for the Wildcats and they had to wait ’till Cheshire donned their doorstep again to put points on the BBL league table. A half to two quarters saw Cheshire run away with it early on, but with grit and determination the Wildcats clawed the game back to a one point deficit.
As the Wildcats came into the ascendancy in the second half of the game, the Newton Aycliffe faithful were able to sense another win on the cards, but as with Durham’s first win, it was left down to the final few plays of the game with Paul Elderkin sinking the final blow to defeat the Jets 90-86.
Durham failed to pick up points for a another long spell between February and April but on 14th April the Wildcats put out Guildford Heat’s flame and in turn picked up their biggest win of the season.
Durham had the first significant lead of the game and after taking that lead they kept a strong grip on it, not allowing Guildford to reduce the points gap.
The Wildcats recorded a stylish win and took their final victory of the season by ten points. The final scores lay at 95-85.
This season in the BBL has been a learning curve for the Wildcats and with stars such as Flaherty, Capocci and Bucci hopefully returning for them next time around, Durham may become much more of a force to be reckoned with.