Raiders comeback in vain
It was nearly the perfect upset, a brilliant comeback from a team who were well and truly down and out, but just fell short at the final hurdle. The Eagles escaped the pavilions with a win, on a night where their opponents missed 24 of their 39 attempts from the foul line.
Predictably, it was the Eagles who jumped out to an early lead. It is easy to go down, and go down big early against a team so efficient and unrelenting in the pressure in which they apply. And as the Eagles took an early 21-11 lead, they already had the Raiders up against the ropes.
When facing a double digit deficit this early, each offensive trip takes on a whole new level of importance. The pressure to score and stay in the contest becomes even greater, as the game looks to quickly run away from you. The Eagles wanted to deliver the knock out punch early, they certainly did not want to leave any hope lingering in the minds of their competition.
Darius Defoe put in an inspired first half performance, eating up rebounds and filling up the scoreboard at the same time. The Londoner destroyed the Raiders interior, which in turn opened up the outside for the likes of Chapman and Thompson who took turns to hit timely buckets.
The momentum entirely belonged to the guys from the North East. They had silenced the home crowd and looked set to pile up an insurmountable lead before the half time buzzer. The visitors took a 55-38 lead into the locker room, in a completely one sided twenty minutes.
The Raiders knew they had to fight harder, work harder, and ultimately believe harder in their own performance. Not wanting to lose face at home, the Greens started to find their stride and found much needed energy from a resurgent home crowd who also began to believe again. Tempers flared, Chapman unhappy with the close attention paid to him by Bell, lost his composure and responded in true diva fashion. Both Bell and Chapman picked up technical fouls for the alteration, but this only seemed to fuel the Raiders to further claw their way back into the game.
Down 71-60 starting the fourth period, the Raiders confirmed their fight back with a 15-4 run. Like he has so many times before already this season, Jeremy Bell put his boys on his back and scored on a number of tough shots, abusing his match up with both Paul Gause and Joe Chapman. It was inside the final minute, and the historic comeback looked to be confirmed when it was the Raiders who had the lead at 86-83. With 19 seconds left to play, Paul Williams found himself on the line and a chance to put his team up five and in the clear. William’s failed on both efforts, it was left to Charles Smith to nail a deep three on the left wing to send the game into overtime. The Eagles sensed their opponents were emotionally and physically spent, and made little work of dispatching them in the five minutes of extra time winning the game 103-93.
