BBL Trophy: Cheshire Jets 78 Mersey tigers 83

Oct 9 2011 by Alec Doyle, Chester Chronicle

WITH no prospect of reaching the knockout stages of the Trophy, Cheshire Jets head coach John Lavery was looking for his side to take full advantage of a Mersey Tigers outfit that had only been together since last Wednesday.

With the departure of Tony Garbelotto's leading light Drew Sullivan on Friday, the same day the Tigers were beaten by group winners Sheffield Sharks, fans were expecting the Jets to come out and give themselves a confidence boost ahead of next Sunday's BBL Championship opener against Leicester Riders.

Instead they once more threw away a commanding lead to lose in the fourth quarter leaving head coach John Lavery with plenty of work to do on the training court this week.

The game started with the Jets gifting possession to the Tigers as Matt Schneck caught the tip-off. that mistake led to the Tigers opening the scoring and at the end of the quarter they led 22-16.

Keith Page played little in the first period but, watched from the bleachers by sister and Great Britain women's captain Julie Page, he exploded in the second to put the Jets in the driving seat.

He started by draining a three-pointer while being fouled, earning an extra free-throw. that also went down to complete a four-point play.

Two more from the charity stripe and a double from open play saw him complete an unbroken eight-point run and another triple in the same quarter helped the Jets establish a seven-point lead.

Things continued to improve in the third as the Jets pulled out an eight-point advantage and early in the fourth it became 10 as they sat at 61-51 in the opening minute.

But it didn't last. The Tigers, still boasting the powerhouse David Aliu despite him suffering a head injury in the third, switched up the intensity. Helsby's own Devan Bailey, rejected from a number of BBL clubs including the Jets this summer, delivered on his home patch finishing with 18 points and Kris Douse went better with 19.

As Garbelotto's side did so masterfully last season, they took the game to the Jets late and managed to make their pressure count.

The Tigers clawed their way into the lead with two minutes remaining and as the clock wound into the final seconds the Jets trailed 81-78 with game top-scorer Matt Schneck (22) having fouled out.

They had one chance to try to take the game into overtime but Adam Brown lost possession of the ball and former Jet Matt Otten drew a foul to go to the line and put the result beyond doubt.

Afterwards a disappointed John Lavery gave a simple yet painful assessment of what went wrong for the Jets.

"They wanted it more than us," he said. "You look at the game and sum it up there were two incidents. In the first second of the game we catch the ball from the tip, and with three seconds to go we surrender a turnover, two incidents, one at the start one at the end but those guys just wanted it more.

"The guys knew how the Tigers played on Friday and I think we came in expecting to win the game. There's a lot of things we did poorly but you have to give the Tigers credit.

"No-one likes to lose, I don't want to lose and those guys in the locker room know exactly what they need to do to put it right next time."

"We need some leaders out there. I don't think we had any leaders out there. We need people to step up and start being Chiefs rather than Indians out there."

But the coach reserved some praise for Page, who handed the Jets their best opportunity to sew the game up early.

"Keith came in off the bench and gave us a really good spark but unfortunately the guys couldn't match that. It was a bad day at the office and we will put that right."