Carnegie got off to a good start offensively in the opening quarter putting up 25 points in the first ten minutes. This gave them to a 7 point lead to take into the second quarter. Hemel regained their composure on both ends of the court during the second period as they held Carnegie to just 13 points whilst scoring 23 of their own. This gave the Storm a 41-38 lead to take into the half time break.

Leeds came out in the second half fully focused on stepping their defensive level up. This led to Hemel being held to just 6 points in the third quarter and 9 points in the fourth quarter. In return Carnegie poured on 32 points across the second half giving them a well earned 56-70 win.

Leeds Carnegie Head Coach Matt Newby was pleased with his team’s second half performance saying “Hemel as expected had a strong roster with some serious size and I think from a defensive perspective we dealt with this very well.”

He continued, “Inevitably it was going to be a physical encounter and we managed their interior offence with solid individual performances from our big men and an aggressive helpline when mismatches occurred. Mikulic and Stannard once again led the scoring but the contributions from all the team were solid and certainly provided us with the consistency in the 3rd and 4th we needed to close out the game. We now need to look at the weekend and improve once more”

Leeds scoring was led for the second week by Croatian Branimir Mikulic with 21 points supported by Jack Stannard with 18 points, whilst the game high came from Hemel’s Bode Adeluola with 26 points.

Stannard said “It was a great all round effort from the team today. We had some strong contributions from everyone and we closed out the game really well.”

This leaves Leeds top of their National Trophy group with four games left to play and the top four teams qualify for the quarter-finals.

Carnegie will now spend the week preparing for two home games at the weekend. They will face Leicester Warriors on Saturday 5th October at 7:30pm in the National Trophy. This will then be followed on Sunday at 4:00pm when they go up against Stockport Falcons in the 2nd Round of the National Cup. Tickets for both games are available on the club’s website.

Story & Photo – Leeds Carnegie

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