Worcester Wolves 98 Mersey Tigers 48

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Worcester Wolves 98-48 Mersey Tigers

Wolves: Owumi 19, Irving 13, Fernandez/Belgrave 12
Tigers: Etilopy 12, Gallagher 8, Hulsen 7

The Mersey Tigers were looking to bounce back from their 106-45 loss to Surrey Heat in the BBL Cup Friday night. The Wolves who were without their starting point guard Sherald Prezzie Blue, looked to capitalize on the fact the Tigers were missing four of their five original starting line up who are not due to arrive in the country until later this week. Stan Ocitti was found wide open for three by team mate Alex Owumi, hitting the first basket of the game. A good indicator of the way the rest of the game would go as Worcester piled up a 22-0 run completely controlling the first quarter. Their defence looking too much for the Mersey Tigers to handle, who failed get any rhythm going offensively making just one field goal.

Starting fives:

Wolves: Fernandez, Belgrave, Ocitti, Owumi, Masiulis.
Tigers: McGinn, Hudson, Etilopy, Hulsen, Bigley.

Coach Tony Walsh who took over the reigns at Mersey from Tony Garbelotto commented:”We were a little put off at the beginning by the flashing lights they had in their opening when announcing players. It put us on the back foot to start off with”. The Tigers looked to their big man Chris Bigley to try and breach the gap in the second quarter, but the Wolves did not let up, Arnas Kaslauskas converted on all three of his 3 point shot attempts as the Wolves pushed the score to 57-23 by the half. New signing, centre Arturas Masiulis got the home crowd going with a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar like sky hook.

With Worcester now double teaming Bigley, point guard of the Tigers Josh Mcginn was desperate to get his team’s offense flowing and was instrumental in keeping the third quarter close, converting two threes and dishing out timely assists. French import Rudy Etilopy looked to provide that added spark for the Tigers, drilling a three pointer at the buzzer to end the third quarter 80-43.

Nothing materialised for Mersey in the fourth quarter who were beaten in every category tonight, out-rebounded 45 to 22 in the game finishing with just 8 points in the 4th as the Wolves eased to victory with an impressive 50 point win.

Tigers Coach Tony Walsh commented: “We came up against a team that was well drilled and well organised. They knew exactly their roles in the game. I was pleased with our shot selection despite the score-line, the ball just wasn’t falling for us. But I’ll go with the team I have. The lads always give everything they’ve got and play hard and when my full squad comes then we’ll be able to see the full team that we’ve got together. We are still expecting two American’s, a 6ft 7 Lithuanian and another European as well. Hopefully we’ll have a full squad by the time we play Giants on Friday. The reason they’re not here today is mainly down to visas.”

Mersey’s star player: Rudy Etilopy – a Frenchmen, arrived in England yesterday after 16 hours travelling. “He’s very tired and one of our key players so I had to keep him out for the last quarter because he was physically drained.”

Coach Paul James of the Worcester Wolves was pleased with his team’s performance, saying:

“This was a great opportunity to play some players that wouldn’t normally get as much court time, with the extended minutes it allowed me to see what they can do both offensively and defensively and I thought they handled themselves very well. It always takes time to build a new team again which we’re doing this year and you can see that players are getting used to playing with other players styles, but certainly I think we’ve improved as a team through each game so far this season and once Sherald Prezzie Blue is back that’ll be the icing on the cake…

Calvin Mourant and Kalil Irving are 1st years at the University of Worcester and both performed well. I actually wanted to recruit Calvin to the university last season but he didn’t get in. I’ve got high hopes for those two, they are very talented in their different ways and I think working with them for the next three years is going to prove positive for the Wolves.”

The Wolves are expecting their starting point guard Prezzie Blue back “within the month, that’s all I can say right now”.

Play of the game 
Couldn’t decide between Stuart Thomson beating his defender and throwing down a huge baseline jam, pulling himself up on the rim for added insult to the Mersey defence and Calvin Morant a 1st year student at the University of Worcester getting the steal, burning the whole Tigers defence and converting the euro step for an and one.

Game MVP 
Mersey Tigers had no answer for Alex Owumi who sliced up their defense scoring 19 points in just 17:34 minutes.

Next up 
Worcester play away against the Cheshire Jets today (Sunday 14 October) whilst Mersey come up against the Manchester Giants this coming Friday.

James Jeffrey @jjeffrey7 and Aaron Wise @aaronwise24 are our beat writing team on campus at the University of Worcester.