Dragons top Cats but fall to warriors
Published on: 14th November 2011
Bradford Dragons empathically beat Brixton Topcats 97 – 70 in the EBL division 1 home game on Saturday in front of largest crowd of the season. Dragons raced to a 17 – 2 lead midway through the first quarter as the visitors struggled to cope with the pace of Dragons, but the impressive Noha brought Brixton back into the game to trail 17 – 25 at the first break as Raimond Pabrieza sank a triple for Dragons on the buzzer. With the Dragons trademark pressure team defence locking Topcats down to 14 points in the second stanza, Dragons pulled away to lead 48 – 31 at half time. With Rihard Sulcs in his best form of the season and on his way to 8 steals and leading all scorers with 25 points, Dragons pulled further ahead in the third quarter to lead 69 – 50 at the final break. Dragons continued to dominate as they won all quarters as Vance ‘Maximus’ Silcott scored yet another double double and Michal Ciesla continuing his fine run of form with 9 assists and 13 points which included 3 from 3 from beyond the arc. Dragons deservedly closed out the game 97 – 70 with a Pabrieza break away dunk as Dragons won all quarters.
For Dragons, Rihard Sulcs top scored with 25 points, Vance Silcott scored 22 points and pulled down 12 boards and Michal Ciesla narrowly missed his first double double of the season as he scored 13 with 9 assists.
After the game Coach Chris Mellor said, ‘We got off to a fast start which gave us a nice platform to build from. We played four consistent quarters both offensively and defensively and all my players contributed towards the win in some form or other. We did OK containing Noha and Toluwase to 30 points between them and apart from Lawman, restricted the rest to single figures. But our defence still needs a lot of work if we are going to be competitive against certain teams in this league’.
The following day Dragons travelled to high flying Leicester Warriors but were unable to reproduce the form of the previous night as they lost the first quarter 17 – 20 and then the second to trail 33 – 42 at half time. With the Warriors dominating the boards at both ends, Dragons managed to win the third quarter by 1 and the last quarter by 2 but were unable to prevent Leicester winning 82 – 76 on the night.
For Dragons Bobby Edmunds made 20, Vance Silcott 19 and Raimonds Pabrieza 12
After the game, Coach Chris Mellor said, ‘Unlike the night before, our commitment to individual and team defence was not good enough. We didn’t compete with them on the boards and our ball defence was non existent. We were always playing catch up and never really looked like getting there.’
Elsewhere for Dragons in another mixed bag of results, Dragons 2 spilled a first quarter 14 point lead to lose 85 – 97 at home to Middlesborough Lions in EBL division 4, Dragons U18 lost away 57 – 70 to Rotherham Hawks in the EBL U18 North East Conference and Dragons U14 lost at home 23 – 130 to Sheffield Saints in their EBL U14 game. However, Dragons women continued their great start to the campaign with an away 70 – 41 win at Derby Trailblazers in then National Founder Cup with their best performance of the season, winning all quarters and Sammy Drake top scoring with 20 points to keep them perfect for the season at 5 - 0.
Dragon’s next game is on Saturday 19th November, 6.15pm at the Trinity Green sports hall, Bradford College, Trinity Road, Bradford BD5 0JE in the EBL division 1 league against London Leopards.
The following day Dragons again play London Leopards, this time in the National Cup quarter final game at 4.15pm. Leopards are led by the outstanding player in the EBL and probably in UK basketball, American Vernon Teel and Dragons will have their work cut out to contain him.
Admission is £5 adults, £2.50 under 16s, concessions and students and family tickets [adults + 2 children] are £10
For more details on the Bradford Dragons go to www.bradforddragons.co.uk or visit Bradford Dragons for the Community on Facebook
