Nene Vs Huntingdon (Peterborough Premier)

The Hawks unbeaten run for 2006 soon came to a sobering end when they ran into the league leaders Nene Valley and were handed their worst defeat of the season 109 – 36.

These two teams met in pre-season and the Hawks were beaten fairly convincingly so the team had hoped that they had learned from the previous encounter but it seemed from the tip-off that the Nene team were at least 2 steps quicker at both ends of the court. While the Hawks defence kept the score close initially they were let down by a poorly run offence leading to several turnovers. The first quarter ended 23 – 8 in favour of Nene.

From there on the floodgates opened and the experienced Nene team ran away with the game. It would be easy for the Hawks to blame the crushing defeat down to the facts that their top scorer was absent (Steve Claringbould) or they were lacking one of their stronger defensive players due to injury (Richard Warham) but in reality after hard fought win mid week against Wisbech where their teamwork gained them a win it also was the main reason for the loss as it seemed the team broke down and it became a game of individuals.

There were a couple of bright moments for the Hawks which came in the second and third quarter where Matt Parsons and Jon Hipple tried to get some intensity into the team and scored the majority of the points.

The final score was 109 -36 to Nene Valley showing why they are top of the league and still undefeated. The loss will be interesting to the Hawks to see how they come back from such a heavy defeat and they are facing St Neots in the Peterborough Cup.

Matt Parson top scored for the Hawks with 14 points and Jon Hipple scored 12.