Long weekend could see the Blazers progress in Trophy
IT will be a long weekend for Derby Trailblazers but they could emerge from it with a place in the quarterfinals of the L Lynch Trophy.
That will be secured if they win either of their matches.
The Blazers are at home to Myerscough College today with an early start (4pm), to help with the fact that they head north to play Team Newcastle University tomorrow (5pm).
“The weekend is a great opportunity for us to pick up a good result or two and put ourselves into a quarterfinal of a knockout competition and have something to look forward to a bit later in the season,” said head coach Matt Shaw.
“Myerscough are going to be young and athletic, so we’re expecting it to be a really difficult game.
“I suspect they’ll come after us defensively and we’ve got to make sure we’re ready, because even though they’re in the league below us we can’t take anything for granted.
Myerscough were beaten 90-67 by
Newcastle last weekend but they pushed Derby all the way before losing 69-62 in last year’s Trophy.
Derby and Newcastle met four times last season, with the series finishing 2-2 and the two clubs separated by only two points in the final league table.
Consequently, Shaw is expecting another tough challenge.
“We had some great battles against them last season and I expect this season to be similar with some very close games,” he said.
“We know quite a bit about them, as some of their players were also there last season.
“They’ve also added Martyn Gayle, who we know an awful lot about as he’s a former player of ours.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to contain their three-point shooting a little bit better than we did last season but I think it should be another excellent game.”
Today’s game is at the Clarence Wiggins Sports Centre, Noel-Baker Academy in Alvaston and tickets can be purchased on the door.
Both games should be available to
follow via LiveStats and the home game will be shown on the Trailblazers’ YouTube channel.
For the home game, it’s https:// bit.ly/3kyv4re and College Webcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdSwM7eaQU.
For Newcastle, it’s https://bit.ly/ 2XTpzea, with the webcast link still to be confirmed.