Dave Ryan reports…
Levett Essex Leopards head into a weekend on the road knowing that they need to start picking up some wins to avoid being sucked into a relegation battle.
The Big Cats travel to Hemel Storm on Saturday evening before moving on to Manchester Magic on Sunday, and the first game is a must-win for Steve Ogunjimi’s side.
While Westminster Warriors look certain to go down with 14 straight losses to open the league season, Leopards and Storm are in a five team pack who are desperate to avoid the second relegation spot.
Both sides have five wins, with Leopards sitting in tenth place with ten defeats, and Hemel in 11th with a 5-11 record. It will be the first league meeting of the campaign between the rivals, with the return at the Brentwood Centre in March, but Storm did win the National Trophy match-up between the sides as a last second three-pointer sealed a 69-68 victory.
That was the Storm’s fourth straight win against Leopards after the Big Cats had recorded an incredible 22-game winning streak against the club who started life as West Herts Warriors.
Sunday’s trip to Manchester will see Leopards face a team who continue to dominate Division One.
Although they lost their grip on the National Cup Magic again reached the Trophy final with an 84-69 win against Derby Trailblazers on Sunday, and are joint second in the table with an 11-3 record and two games in hand over leaders Team Northumbria.
The meeting between the teams at the Brentwood Centre in October saw Leopards fail to recover from a terrible first period as they went down 80-60.
Sunday’s trip to high-flying Reading started well for the Big Cats, but with captain Mike Martin missing with a leg injury they were unable to build on that good beginning and allowed the Rockets to record a tenth straight league win with an 89-74 victory.
AJ Roberts opened the scoring with a three-pointer, and that set the tone for a good day for the American guard who finished with 29 points, six rebounds and four assists.
A Jamie Hayes jump shot off Roberts’ assist put Leopards 11-7 up at the mid-stage of the first period and although the hosts briefly took a 16-15 lead, a score from new signing Alex Scotland-Williamson sent the Big Cats into opening break with a 21-17 lead,
Perry Lawson drained a trey to open the second period and make it a five point game but an 11-2 run from the hosts saw them regain the lead and despite a massive dunk from Scotland-Williamson to wrap up the half, it was Rockets who took a 42-35 lead.
Scores from Roberts and Darrell Bethune saw the Big Cats open the second half strongly but as the foul count continued to grow they were unable to get any closer than four points and it took a buzzer-beating lay-up from Bethune to cut the deficit to 65-55 at the final break.
A Justin Hitchman and-one made it an eight point game with six minutes remaining but when Scotland-Williamson reacted angrily to a foul call and fouled out on a technical the game was effectively over for the Big Cats as they slipped to a third straight league loss.