John Madejski Academy 25/09/2011

With new boys, Craig and Adam in the squad, Rockets were looking forward to their first game of the season at the John Madejski Academy against a tall looking Haringey Hawks.  Having beaten London Greenhouse Pioneers to come third in last season’s Nationals, the Hawks were going to be a very difficult start for the Rockets.  Coach Ben gave the pre-match talk and everyone was raring to go.

The first five of Max, Jerome, Aron, Brad and Rob took to the court and from the tip off it was end to end stuff with Aron pulling off an excellent break to grab the first basket of the game.  Scoring was scarce for the first five minutes with the teams trading baskets but the Hawks shifted up a gear in the fifth minute and started to pull away with four unanswered baskets.  Callum was introduced to the game and momentarily gave hope as he was fouled whilst driving through the D and pulled back a point for the rockets from the resulting free throws.  Despite swapping Aron for Craig and reintroducing Rob to the mix, Rockets were unable to make progress and the quarter ended 23-5 to the Hawkes.

Q2 continued the same ferocious pace as Coach Ben sought to find a way to clip the Hawks wings.  Adam and Richan were brought in to the game and gave a little respite to tired legs with the Rockets pulling back four points in the 3^rd and 4^th minutes.  The Hawkes however, remained strong, scoring an unanswered run of 10 baskets to bring their total to 53 at the end of Q2 with the Rockets finishing on 11 points.

By the start of Q3, the pace was beginning to tell, but the Rockets continued to try and breakdown the well-drilled Hawkes.  We continued with some excellent break play from Brad, Craig, Richan and Adam, strong rebounding from Max, Aron Jerome and Callum and decent movement whilst in offence but were unable to breach the aggressive defence put up by the Hawkes.  At the other end the Hawks continued spotting the gaps and taking them.  The quarter ended with the Hawkes up 77-21.

Despite the scoreline, the Rockets, to their credit, did not give up and held the Hawks to a net 4 point gain for the first 5 minutes of the quarter.  The Hawkes showed their class and refused to let the Rockets settle, scoring 14 points in 2 minutes.  Rockets kept going to the end and finished the Q4 by grabbing the final 3 points of the quarter.

Final Score : Reading Rockets 30 – Haringey Hawkes 105

It is early days in the season and the Rockets lacked a bit of match sharpness – losing possession on occasion by missing passes and rebounds.  However this was very tough opposition and it is encouraging to see that this was a real team effort with everyone contributing well and continuing to battle throughout the game.

Go on the Rockets!!!!

Team and scorer table: