Everton Tigers 82 (16,39,65) (Smith 25, Bailey 19, Midgley 11)
Newcastle Eagles 88 (23,47,66) (Moore 20, Moore 20, Bridge 20)

Another full house (that’s three in a row) was on hand at Greenbank to see who was going to get the upper hand in this tie.

Well this time Newcastle Eagles will take a six point advantage into the second leg of their BBL Trophy semi-final against Everton Tigers on Friday after beating the Merseyside club 82-88 on the road.

Fab Flournoy’s team had the better of the match and led by as many as 13 in the second quarter before being pegged back. A 7-0 burst over the last 56 seconds by Eagles proved to be the only difference between the two sides on this night.

The Eagles were the first to hit their stride with Andrew Bridge’s three opening the scoring on the way to a 2-8 lead, but the Tigers made their intentions known by opening up their scoring with an alley oop dunk by Josh Gross on a Marcus Bailey assist.

Tigers roared back to take their first lead of the match at 10-8 with a Gross field goal but it was all Newcastle for the rest of the first quarter as threes from Fab Flournoy and another from Bridge gave the visitors a 16-23 lead after ten minutes.

A 9-4 burst to start the second period handed Newcastle a 12 point lead at 20-32 midway through the stanza. Tigers trimmed the deficit to seven on Josh Gross’s layup (31-38) and again on James Jones’s three (34-41).

The fight back was short lived though as a 6-0 burst by Eagles gave them their biggest lead of the half (34-47) before a two by former Eagles Richard Midgley and a three on the half time buzzer by Andre Smith narrowed the gap to 39-47.

Tafari Toney made it a double digit lead early in the third quarter, but it was the Tigers who dominated the rest of the action. A 16-5 run, with seven points from Midgley, giving Everton the lead (55-54).

Tigers couldn’t build on this momentum though and the lead changed hand several times throughout the rest of the quarter with Newcastle ending it one point in front 65-66.

A 12-2 Everton run gave the hosts their biggest lead of the night (75-68) at the start of the fourth quarter. The Eagles replied immediately with a 9-2 run of their own to tie the match at 77-77.

From there on neither side could break from the other until Bridge’s ‘and one’ gave the Eagles the lead for good at 82-84. Four free throws by Trey Moore completed the scoring and gave Newcastle a six point margin to defend on Tyneside later in the week.

The leading scorer on the night was Andre Smith of the Tigers with 25 including some unbelievable putbacks. He was assisted by Marcus Bailey with 19 and Richard Midgley with 11.

For the Eagles three players, Trey Moore, Andrew Bridge and Reggie Jackson would finish with 20 points each. For me personally there were some magnificent basketball played and some fantastic individual plays.

Unfortunately two of the best plays led to no points but that did not stop them being great plays.

At the end of the 3rd there were just 8 seconds left when Chuck Evans of the Tigers got the ball on his own end line. Under great pressure he drove to the top of the key with the crowd shouting shoot, He calmly picked out Chris Haslam who had made a move along the baseline. Chris laid it up as the quarter expired…unfortunately he missed.

Missed he might have, but the play by Evans on this offence was quite exquisite.

The other memorable play was by Tafari Toney, the Assist BBL Dunk Champion for 2009.

The Eagles took a shot and missed Toney coming in along the baseline right side collected the rebound with two hands and was about to flush it over his right shoulder again with both hands.

Unfortunately he was fouled and failed to make what would have been one of the most awesome plays of the night.

So now the action moves back to the Metro Radio Arena on Friday night as we try to find out who is going to the 2009 BBL Trophy Final. Last time we were in this situation the Eagles had led by 7 points with the second leg to come at Greenbank. This time they lead by 6 points with the second leg to come on their home court.

It could be the difference but anyone who thinks this tie is over is wrong. These are two of the best matched teams in the BBL and neither team is going to lie down in the second leg.

This one could still go either way and, as far as I am concerned, this truly is a must see game.

Later

Mike S

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