Darren Skuse posted on January 20, 2009 10:22
After returning from the Christmas and New Years break, the Santo Stefano boys had slow start to the week in training. Late arrivals, some players out of form and others recovering from the travel back in Italia. The match up against Vicenza for the first game of the New Year was really a blessing for the S.Stefano. Last placed Vicenza would struggle to keep up with our speed, strength and shooting on court. Which is exactly how the first quarter played out. It took the first few minutes for S.Stefano to find their feet but from that point onwards to the half time break the lead and pressure gradually pulled out and escalated. Going into the second half with 43-25.
There was a good turn out to for our first game back at home which is always a positive to have the crowd behind us. Out of the gates in the second half Coach Malik made some changes and adjustments on court to work with some different combinations and give some players a rest on the bench.
Vicenza came out fighting in the second half not ready to give up in what seemed to be a very difficult defecit to recover. But they did well and kept S.Stefano on their toes right into the last few minutes of the game. In which the original 18pt lead had dwindled to just 9pts, then 5pts in the last minute. But it was S.Stefano’s night and we were determined not to the on the wrong end of an upset, closing out the game with a 5 pt lead and adding another 2pts to our tally on the ladder.
Final score: 72-67
This week will see more hard work on the court fine tuning our game for the very important confrontation against Sassari who came away victors last time on our home turf. So we are ready for some pay back in Sardinia.