All-Stars fight hard to get win
EJ’S SLIGO ALL-STARS PORTLAOISE PANTHERS 69 65
EJ’s Sligo All-Stars were back in action at home to Portlaoise Panthers in a packed Mercy College on Saturday night.
After their opening game of the season, they were at home to Limerick, and were victorious before travelling to Cork, where they came up short against a tough Neptune side.
A win on Saturday was what the young side were looking for and the All-Stars fought right to the end against a dogged Portlaoise outfit.
Alberto Garcia’s men came away winners on a narrow margin of 69 points to 65.
The Spanish Head Coach said he was pleased with the win in what was a very evenly contested encounter.
He said as the side have only been working together for three weeks, this makes for some mistakes in games.
He added: “Our second home game of the season resulted in a tight win 69-65 against a Portlaoise Panthers team that didn’t give up until the last second.
“A lot of unforced mistakes from our young team made the game tougher than it should have been but on the other hand this is not so rare after only 3 weeks working together, missing players every practice for different reasons and when players are asked to step out of their comfort zone and play team basketball game and a disciplined defence can be tough.”
The 30-year-old Head Coach said there were many positives to be taken from the game.
“65 points is definitely better than the 91 points scored by LIT Celtics in the first home game of the season.
“We want to become a team that can consistently stop our opponents from scoring and continue to build our team scoring abilities.”
Alberto admitted seeing the young players coming through and contributing to the team’s performance has been extremely positive too.
He added: “It is very positive to see the contribution of our youth players, they are the future of our club as we move forward.
“If we all believe in the idea: team comes before individual; I really believe that great things are ahead of us.”
The Spaniard said he hopes supporters will be out in force once again at the next home game.
The side are away to Killorglin this Saturday, then the following week travel to take on the UL Eagles, the first round of the President’s Cup is on October 18th, while the All-Stars welcome Titans to Sligo on October 28th for what should be another well supported game with the home fans cheering on the All-Stars.
The top scorers from Saturday’s game were as follows:
EJ’s Sligo All-Stars Tobias Brockmann 16 Cían Lally 11 Jesus San Martin 10
Portlaoise Panthers Mantas Vilmas 24 Gedaminas Sevelis 12 Tim Stewart 11.