Worthing Thunder lost out to Thames Valley Cavaliers 90 – 76 in their first league trip of the season on Saturday leaving them with a 2 and 2 record and sitting 7th in League Division One.
Solent Kestrels, last years’ champions top the table with the only unbeaten status in the league (4-0) but there is plenty still to play for with just four rounds of fixtures played.
In a match which was fairly evenly poised until half-time there was very little to separate the teams. At the end of the first quarter Thunder trailed their hosts by just 4 points and by the time the teams retired to the locker-room for the half time break Thunder were still very much in the game with Cavaliers leading by 3 points (49-46).
It was after the teams returned to the court that the hosts started to put their marker on the game. Gradually Cavaliers began to take command of the match and with Thunder not hitting the target as well as they have done of late the home side stretched the lead to 7 points at the end of the third period. Thunder were unable to recover as the game pushed towards its final conclusion and a 19-12 in the ultimate session saw Cavaliers finish with a comfortable 14 point victory.
Cavaliers out-shot their visitors in field goals 36 from 75 (48%) compared to Thunder’s success rate of 28 from 80 (35%) and the hosts out-rebounded Thunder 54-39. Thunder however continue to ensure they do not easily give the ball-away – a factor which has improved drastically since last season – conceding only 6 turn-overs in the game.
Zaire Taylor once again hit a double-double (22 points and 10 rebounds) and other scorers for Thunder were Cameron Hildreth (19 points); Alex Owumi (13 points) ; Tom Ward (13 points); Kayne King (7 points); Ishmael Fontaine (2 points).