Ipswich Men’s team extended their early season undefeated league run to 4-0 with a solid 88 – 63 win at home to Oaklands Wolves. The game started evenly with both teams scoring some well worked plays and trading points accordingly. The enthusiastic Wolves team played with discipline as well as high energy and the first period ended 25-26 to Oaklands.
The second period saw Ipswich improve in transition and create multiple fast break opportunities as they ran the floor well, raising the tempo of the game considerably and they went on to win the period by 15 points and take a 54-40 lead going into the locker room.
After the half time break it was clear that Ipswich had raised their level of defensive intensity even further. The team is starting to show a real strength in depth and this was clearly demonstrated as all twelve players played minutes in a dominant second half display keeping Oaklands to just 23 points for the half.
This was also another solid offensive performance by Ipswich with a massive 67 point contribution coming from the bench with AJ Vega-Fonrodona entering the game in the 5th minute for his debut contributing 22 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists – the points haul was further added to by the dominant offensive play of Luke Mascall-Wright and Ben Stewart with the Oaklands defence struggling to cope with this double pronged power attack.
Ipswich dominated the final quarter running out 88-63 victors.
Coach Mark Lloyd commented after the game: “We were really pleased with the way we attacked Oaklands today and put them under all sorts of pressure. We still need to work on the continuity of our offence after the first and secondary break phases and we have a lot more to build on defensively – but having said that we should take real pride in how far we have come in a matter of a couple of short months. AJ has come straight in to the line up today and given us yet another dimension – which will prove highly beneficial as he gets more and more used to how we play and we learn how to get the best out of him”
Ipswich travel to the south coast this weekend to take on Brighton Bears in an early season top of the table clash and return to HQ on Saturday 12th November when they host Greenwich Titans at 6pm
Leading Scorers:
‘AJ’ Vega-Fonrodona 22
Ben Stewart 21
Luke Mascall-Wright 18