Greenwich Titans U18s vs. London Youngblood Lions
The season started off fiery for Greenwich Titans as they travelled to Raines Foundation School to play the London Lions. New addition Seun Babalola and U16s Eni Ogunfemi, Samuel Olotu, and Tobi Ojo making their U18s debut were all impactful as they combined defensively and offensively to make their presence felt. The boys started off slow offensively missing a number of lay ups and long range shots, but soon picked up their rhythm on the defensive end, thus helping to create easy fast break scores.
Trailing for much of the first half the boys managed to tie it up at the end of the 3rd with a buzzer beater from Ojo. Going in to the 4th the boys were poised to take the lead and continued to battle, they started the quarter on a 6-0 run and never looked back. A chippy competition saw three titans fouled out and lots of heated discussion between the two teams. The lions did their best to fight back with some aggressive drives to the basket and knocking down open threes but the Titans ended up the victors winning 84-72.
Greenwich Titans v Sussex Bears
The senior team had a tough opening game against Sussex Bears in the Patrons Cup, after a good start to the game they were only up by 4 points in the opening quarter due to good ball movement and key players knocking down shots, however only managed to score 3 points in the 2nd quarter against a predominantly flat 2-3 zone, albeit well executed by Sussex Bears.
Titans were really struggling with their shooting only making 9 out of 31 (29%) from deep an 10 out of 34 (29%) from inside the ark compared to Sussex’s 61% from 2 point range.
New comers Nicolas Fearon (14) and Jake Murphy (10) led the scoring for Titans in what was a really underwhelming performance from the team. Having not lost a regular season game in over 9 months, this will serve as a good wake up call for where the team need to be to make inroads into Division 2.
The Titans team have lost a number of key players in the off season and the team is currently still trying to find its identity, there were promising signs in the game of what could be achieved, but a healthy roster and player commitment is required to deliver on that promise.
Next match features the men taking on Newham All Stars on Sunday 30th September in the mens’s cup were improvement will be expected.
Greenwich Titans U16s vs. Hackney Royals
Under 16s ended the weekend with a second loss of the season at home to Hackneys Royals in the cup, this was a tough game from the onset, with both starting point guards being unavailable to play the game. Players Connor Fuller and Samuel Olotu combined for 40 points in a game that went to the wire, Korai Halil played point for the entire game and that increased responsibility will go a long was to helping him mature as a player.
The 2 teams meet again in the league on Sunday where we hope to reverse the result.
……Elsewhere within the Titans Community
The John Roan School vs. Barking and Dagenham College
The John Roan School opened their season at home this week against Barking and Dagenham College. After a tough year last year, they returned nearly a full squad and have made key additions. The game was fast paced from the off with John Roan putting away several dunks created by steals and rebounds. Although shell shocked, Barking were able to calm the storm with much needed baskets from several spots on the floor.
John Roan were able to keep the pressure up whilst rotating the bench and took a commanding lead throughout the 1st half. This trend continued in the 3rd as John Roan came out ramped up in the first 5 minutes. Although BDC continued to fight and upped their efforts with a change of defence and more offensive aggression, it was too late for any kind of comeback. The final score was 96-33 in favour of John Roan.
Top Scorers:
- Seun Babalola 19
- Mekachi Nwokeji 15
- Larry Ayinla 14