Harlow Hawks made the short trip down the M11 for their final league game of 2016. With half of the senior squad unable to make the fixture, Hawks U18’s players Mubbasher Niaz and Joshua Haddow were called up for the game and both made positive contributions in the game.
After Erks opened the scoring for the game, Hawks put together their best spell of the game with some great offence combined with some traffic defence. On the offensive end the ball and player movement saw Hawks getting a number of options for either open jumpshots or layups off of good cuts to the basket. The result of this was a 13-2 run with Hawks scores coming from Tom White, Russ Allan, Lee Morris and Rimantas Norkeliunas. On the defensive end Hawks rotated well to contest the shots and secured any rebounds or loose balls.
Erks then managed to claw back some of the Hawks lead before finishing the quarter stronger and the visiting Hawks led 18-19 at the end of the quarter.
Even though the scoresheet would suggest that the second quarter was a bad one for Hawks, it was in terms of the number of points they were able to put on the board. However they continued to play well and compete at both ends of the floor. But the thing that the scoresheet can’t show is that Hawks had plenty of good opportunities to score but were unable to do so in response to Erks scoring the first 15 points in the quarter. A Dan Cohen score stopped this run followed by a strong fastbreak lay-up by Joshua Haddow who was fouled on the play, but unable to convert the bonus point.
The only other score in the quarter for Hawks came via Norkeliunas. Overall Hawks had put in a good first half performance and given a good account of themselves compared to when these teams had last met at the start of the season. Hawks trailed 41-25 at the half.
Erks stepped up their defensive pressure in the 3rd quarter and forced a lot of turnovers from Hawks which led to number of easy fastbreak points. Hawks could have avoided some of these turnovers by moving the ball earlier but this was not necessarily as easy as being said due to the availability of other players to receive the pass. Whenever Hawks were able to get the ball past the pressure defence they had chances to score with Norkeliunas being the only Hawks registering any points for the visitor in the first 9 minutes of the quarter.
With Haddow and Allan making their free-throws in the final few minutes of the quarter Hawks managed to pull the Erks lead back slightly 60-38.
Hawks continued to compete at both ends of the floor in the final quarter. Even though scores were proving hard to come by on the offensive end, the effort level on defensive end didn’t drop and was a credit to them. Scores from Cohen, Morris, Haddow, White and Norkeliunas kept the scoreboard ticking over for Hawks.
Compared to the thrashing that Erks had handed out to Hawks at the start of the season, this game was a different story with Hawks putting in a much more competitive display which they can be proud of despite the 79-51 loss.
Written by: Coach Shab
