The senior men had mixed success this weekend as they, like the women , took to the floor in both league and national cup action with road trips to Richmond Knights and Northampton Titans.
Saturday saw a very intense game in Richmond with both teams fighting on every possession and for every score keeping things tight all the way to the end with Ipswich finally closing out 56-52 victors. A couple of vital steals and then excellent game management lead by point guard Jacob Lloyd down the stretch kept the unbeaten start to the league programme in tact. It was an impressive team performance in terms of togetherness and work ethic but revealed plenty for the team to improve upon in terms of execution particularly at the offensive end of the floor.
Top Scorers:
- Ben Stewart 12
- Aaron Williams 10
- Jacob Lloyd 9
On Sunday the men were back on the road this time making the trip to Northamptonshire Titans looking to book a place in the 4th round of the National Cup and a trip to Division 1 outfit Westminster Warriors. Again, this was a very competitive affair with Ipswich struggling to contain the perimeter shooting power of the inform Wilson & Paul. However, Aaron Williams lead the Ipswich response with an impressive personal hall of 26 points. The game was played at a phrenetic pace with the end to end nature of attacking basketball keeping the home crowd vocal in cheering their team on to ultimately a 98-88 victory.
Top Scorers:
- Aaron Williams 26
- Ben Stewart 14
- Rio Murray 13
Head Coach Mark Lloyd commented after the weekend’s activity “We have taken so much out of this weekend – on Saturday we really executed well down the stretch to etch out a four point win against a strong Knights team coached by ex Ipswich favourite Issac Omarin. Then on Sunday we were in the game until the bitter end only to let them get away from us in the final two minutes. We will learn from this – but players have picked up valuable court time across the two games and we continue to grow as a group. We look forward getting back on the practice floor this week to work on our mistakes and prepare for our home game with Oaklands Wolves on Saturday!”