Durham Cougars 58 Vs Hartlepool HEAT 57
HEAT lose in close battle.
Cougars piled more agony on the Men’s second team as they found themselves on the wrong side of another close score line.
Cougars roared into an 18-7 opening quarter lead. Hartlepool replied with a stronger second quarter thanks to baskets from Paul Atkinson and Adam Wilcox but still trailed 34-21 at half time.
After the 3rd quarter HEAT had managed to trim 3-points of Durham’s lead and with all to play for the Hartlepool outfit finally started to play their attacking game.
Joe Davison and Stephen Purdy worked overtime to get HEAT back into to it and with 2 minutes left HEAT had clawed the Cougars back to within 3-points.
Durham scored their last basket with a minute to go and HEAT piled on the pressure with a full court man-man defence that gifted them no less than six free throws. Unfortunately only 3/6 were converted and when Durham turned the ball over the scoreboard read 58-57 with 15 seconds remaining. Robinson called the time out and HEAT had one shot to scalp the champions. HEAT swung the ball for the shot but it missed, however a rebound tip to Wilcox who released the ball with 2 seconds left could only watch as it hit the ring and bounced around and then away as Durham raised their arms and sighed a huge relief.
Scorers: Joe Davison 18, Adam Wilcox 10, Stephen Purdy 8