Wednesday 23^rd September 2009

Plymouth Raiders 77 v Reading Rockets 69

Rockets were pleased to honour the invitation from Raiders chairman Bob Widdicombe to venture over two hundred miles to the south west for this pre-season friendly despite being without their influential point guard and play maker, Terell Smith. Rockets lined up with six teenagers and two twenty one year olds - all in the Rockets academy programme. The opening minutes reflected something of the awe these young men felt playing in this superb venue packed with passionate Raiders supporters and their well known brilliant mascot Foxy.

Within the first five minutes Rockets found themselves nine points adrift at 7-16 and on the receiving end of a pair of open threes from Raiders new guard Eric Flato. A number of Rockets shots rimmed out but before the quarter ended, four Rockets players had troubled the scorers with captain Ryan Lohfink intercepting one crucial Raiders attack and scoring from a hook shot with Louis Sayers, Dan McKay and Adam Thoseby keeping Rockets in the game at 11-20 down.

An opening six unanswered points by Raiders gave them a fifteen point lead at 26-11. Rockets acting Head Coach Matt Johnson called a time out after which Raiders failed to score any more three pointers in the quarter whilst Rockets created much better space and hit four such shots with Thoseby, on the buzzer, and Simon Kearney scoring one apiece and Robbie Parker hitting a pair. Rockets missed an opportunity to get within six points of Raiders when they failed to score on a fast break before Raiders finished the quarter strongly with the last four points leaving Rockets going to the locker room ten points down at 31-41.

Coach Johnson was pleased with the improvement in ball handling but emphasised the battle needed to be on the boards where Plymouth scored eighteen points off nine rebounds to Rockets two points. Terry Horton, Flato and Florentino Valencia had scored thirty three of Raiders forty one points so Rockets needed to do a better job on these three if they were to stand any chance of victory, though Rockets found themselves sixteen points adrift at 35-51 within three minutes of the start of quarter three following a pair of Raiders three pointers so a Rockets time out was called as Johnson hammered home the need for tighter defence. And how well did Rockets play from here!! Rockets went on a 10-4 run, stepped up the impetus and showed tremendous courage against the full time professionals. McKay and Harrison Gamble took crucial defensive rebounds from which Rockets cut the deficit, Lohfink scored well inside whilst Jason Sayers rose high to tip in another Rockets effort. One sequence saw Rockets take four consecutive offensive boards and impose themselves much more. Louis Sayers hit a long two from wide out and Jon May scored three from four points from the foul line. With Parker sending a great penetrative pass to Jason Sayers to score and Lohfink taking a charge, Rockets had come right back into the game with another twenty points to twenty one points period leaving the score 62-51 in Raiders favour.

When the fourth quarter began you could see Rockets relishing the prospect of making even more inroads as confidence had replaced timidity, courage was at the fore and the Academy kids realised they could play well on this stage. The Sayers brothers scored five quick points, Lohfink turned and hit a sweet shot before a McKay drive saw Rockets just five down within the opening two and a half minutes. Plymouth then got some cheap points but Rockets took off again. A great bounce pass from May pierced Raiders defence as Parker scored, quickly followed by a superb arrow pass for Jason to finish and bring the score to 63-66. Raiders called a time out but defensive boards by McKay who ran coast to coast to finish, though fouled in the process, hit the bonus shot to bring the scores level at sixty six points each with five minutes remaining. Rockets had quietened the Raiders supporters with a super fifteen points to four run. Both teams scored with Rockets still well in with less than ninety seconds to go and one point down. However a couple of Rockets threes rimmed out whilst a Raiders three went in, necessitating Rockets to stop the clock with fouls which Raiders converted to win the game 77-69 but Rockets came away having given a superb account of themselves after the opening quarter. In fact Rockets won the game 58-57 from then on together with the much improved second half 38-36. Coach Johnson was pleased with the way Rockets battled, showed courage as Rockets left Plymouth with their heads held high and more new friends made. They had held Raiders troublesome trio to just eighteen points in the second half as Rockets intensity and courage shone through.

Rockets top scorers were Ryan Lohfink 14 points Robbie Parker 11 points and Jon May 10 points with Lohfink and May taking 8 and 6 rebounds respectively.