Ipswich men’s team suffered their first league loss of the season when they travelled to Brighton Bears at the weekend in an early top of the table clash which proved to be a highly competitive affair. Ipswich took an early lead which the Bears clawed back leaving the score 19-19 at the end of the first quarter.
The second period was played at a ferocious pace and the large local crowd started to get very vocal behind their team. A great atmosphere put another element of spice into the clash as both teams fought there way to the locker room for the half time break with Ipswich hanging on to a 43-42 lead.
Brighton came into the second half with a definite increase in aggression and Ipswich lost the third period by 10 under some strong pressure defence from the Bears – Ipswich ending up 57-66 down going into the last period.
During the second half both Dymytro Kukuruza and Harry Gent found themselves in foul trouble as the battle of the boards got more and more fierce.
Despite a hard fought final period lead by AJ Vega and Aaron Williams in the back court and the ever hard working duo of Rio Murray 10 points, 10 rebounds, and Ben Stewart 10 points 8 rebounds, Ipswich eventually lost this one 76-84.
After the game Head Coach Mark Lloyd commented “ This has been our toughest test so far without question. We really struggled with the Brighton press in the third period and have got to learn to play with more composure as a group when put under this type of pressure. Having said that we were without three potential starters in Luke (Mascall-Wright), Will (Ashby) and Jacob (Lloyd) and we felt this in the rotations down the stretch. We fought hard as a group and actually won the fourth period but had left ourselves too much to do coming out of that third period. We will learn from it, continue to grow and move on.”
Ipswich return to HQ on Saturday with the visit of Greenwich Titans at 6pm.
Top Scorers:
- AJ Vega-Fonrodona 23
- Aaron Williams 15
- Ben Stewart 10
- Rio Murray 10