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Leopards leave it late for win

12:48pm Thursday 28th January 2010


BASKETBALL: LEOPARDS 76 SHEFFIELD ARROWS 70 THEY made hard work of it, but Leopards picked up their fourth Division One victory of the campaign against Sheffield, on Sunday.

In front of a big crowd at Brentwood, Leopards only trailed for 34 seconds, but it took until the final two minutes for them to wrap up the victory.

Carl Latham-Henry again led the Big Cats’ scoring, finishing with 21 points in 37 minutes, while Leigh Greenan added 17 points and six rebounds with Lukas Volskis and Ignazio De Ferrari each scoring ten points.

Leopards’ illness and injury problems continued, with coach Jon Burnell too unwell to attend the game and Ronnie Baker still not well enough. Baker stepped up to coach the Big Cats in Burnell’s absence, and he was assisted by forward Sam Richardson who looks to be out of action for several weeks with a broken thumb.

Lukas Volskis started in Baker’s place having re-signed on Tuesday, and De Ferrari also returned to the side after missing the last three games.

Osemwegie Eboigbe opened the scoring for Arrows, but Leopards’ reply was swift as Greenan, Latham-Henry and Marlan Henry all scored in a 6-0 run.

Arrows struggled to cope with the inside presence of Greenan as he scored six points in the quarter, and with Latham-Henry adding four and Chris Michaelides hitting a trey, the home side led 22-15 at the first break.

Both sides struggled at the foul line in the early minutes of the second period, Arrows’ Andrew Purnell scoring the only charity shot as both sides went to the stripe four times.

A Jonny Wright trey gave Leopards a ten-point advantage after two minutes of action, and with Volskis also scoring, the home side held a comfortable double-digit lead for most of the period before Ant Oxley hit a trey to make it an eight point game, but Latham-Henry free-throws sent the Big Cats into the locker room with a 42-30 lead.

Sebastian Chitagu opened the second half scoring for Sheffield as he moved towards his game-high 26 points, but Leopards looked to have put the game to bed with a 9-0 run.

Greenan five points in that tear as Leopards moved into a 19 point lead to force an Arrows time-out.

Sheffield coach Pete Kelly’s words obviously worked as Arrows answered with 11 straight points and although Latham-Henry broke the tear with back-to-back baskets, Arrows scored the last five points of the period to cut the hosts’ lead to 55-48 at the final break.

That lead shrunk to two points as Chitagu opened the scoring followed by a Chris Mason and-one.

Leopards looked to have weathered the storm thanks to baskets by Latham-Henry, Volskis and Henry, but a 7-0 run saw Arrows grab their first lead since the opening minutes, 62-61 with 3:39 remaining.

Latham-Henry and Chitagu exchanged baskets before the Big Cats finally took control of the game.

Volskis hit a jump-shot before Henry buried a three from the top of the key to make it a four point game with 108 seconds remaining.

Chitagu halved the lead, but four straight points from De Ferrari followed by a Latham-Henry basket effectively sealed the win, and Laurent Irish and Latham-Henry wrapped it up from the foul line.


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