09.11.2008 Shropshire Warriors U18 (Away) v City of Birmingham II (Home) 83 : 72

The warriors travelled up to the Neechels centre in Birmingham this Sunday in high spirits and with hopes of building on last weeks victory at TCAT against the Worcestor Wolves. Shropshire arrived in plenty of time so to ensure we got a good warm-up. With the Birmingham players putting on some high-flying dunking exhibitions during warm-ups Shropshire's Coaches thought they be in for some tough comptetion.

However in the game Shropshire seemed to be a class above the Birmingham boys. Shropshire started off badly in the first quarter but they soon got into their stride and took over the game. Ben parry ran the point well and handled the pressure of Birmingham's athletic guards and our big man today, finally did a better job of rebounding the basketball; this was the first game of the season that we managed to hold the other team under 10 offensive rebounds thanks mainly to the work off shaun and jacob (12 and 8 rebounds respectively). The whole team put in a big effort for the whole game and did well to break Birminghams pressing defence resulting in lots of fast break points. Shropshire was just too much for Birmingham, and althought we let up a little at the end of the game and the scoreline doesn't really reflect Shropshires dominance, Birmingham were never really in the game.

Gaz Harrison played well in his first game of the season. All the coaching staff know Gareths talents and he showed today that at times he can be a real threat to the other team. With Garent integrating into the teams rotation and stretching out other teams defences Shropshire are becoming a more effective offensive team every week.

Shropshire's main fault was once again turnovers. Shropshire, at times, made a very average team look good in this game. By turning over the ball and giving them easy baskets. If the warriors want to be competetive against the best teams in the midlands, they have the players but they need to learn to take care of the ball.

Ben Parry once our MVP scoring 31 points and at times single handedly breaking Birminghams press. Ben is really coming into his own and is growing into a very good player.


STATS

	points	assists	rebounds	steals	blocks	charges drawn	FT att	FT made	Turnovers
Ben	31	6	3	3	1		12	10	5
Robbie	10	2	3	3	2		5	2	8
kenny	6	1	3	1			3	1	5
Jacob	10	2	8	1	2		1		2
John	2	0	1						2
Shaun	8	1	12		1		3	1	2
Gaz	4	1							2
Phil	0	3	1	3		1			5
Zach	0
Sam	0