Hartlepool HEAT 55 – Rotherham Hawks 47
After an agonising defeat in Rotherham to the Hawks last week the HEAT were looking to prove that they were better than the 43-42 score line had read.
Rotherham opened the scoring but HEAT replied through a Ryan Mckenzie brace of baskets. Rotherham’s influential captain Matthew Woodhouse drove the lane and was fouled. He made 1/2 of his free throws and Rotherham took a 1-point lead. HEAT responded through an excellent power move by Alex Byron. Mckenzie again lead the way for HEAT combining well with Byron and HEAT edged into a 5-point lead. With seconds left of the quarter a slip of concentration let Rotherham in and with a basket the visitors cut HEATs lead to 3-points.
Just like in Rotherham a very late basket at the end of one quarter spurred the Hawks on in the following quarter as Rotherham hit HEAT with a 12-8 spell. It looked like it was going to be one of those days as HEAT did everything but score consistently during this tough second quarter. The final basket of the half came from HEAT as Daniel Pardue stepped up and hit 2-points with seconds left.
A half time team talk made sure the HEAT came out firing in the third quarter and this is where they put Rotherham away.
Macauley Novak hit 12 points personal of HEATs total of 20-points this whole quarter as he cut and slashed his way through the Rotherham defenders and edged HEAT into the lead after 3-minutes. Rotherham responded, again through Woodhouse and tied the game on 36-36 but Byron and Pardue, who was having a fantastic game also chipped in with another brace of baskets as HEAT stormed into a 6-point lead.
The final 10 minutes was another fine performance by HEAT although Rotherham did cause a scare when late on they hit two 3-pointers back to back but the Hartlepool outfit had too many answers with Novak, Byron, Pardue and Mckenzie all scoring baskets to give HEAT a convincing win.
Scorers: Macauley Novak 20, Alex Byron 12, Ryan Mckenzie 8, Daniel Pardue 6