Reading Rockets ended their impressive home stand in March with a high scoring 101- 91 win over the Essex Rebels.
It was Troy Cracknell who once again led the Rockets in scoring, notching 28 points and 10 rebounds.
It was Cracknell’s 11th game of the season with over 20 points and his seventh game with at least 10 rebounds.
Reis Pinnock hit a couple big threes late on his way to a 19 point game while Jermiah Jenkins got it going early, ending with 15 points.
In front of a sold out Loddon Valley, a win guaranteed a playoff spot and the crowd did an amazing job in being the sixth man.
It was Jenkins who got the Rockets cooking, getting the mismatch with the massive Lee Linton-Hodges where Flip stepped into a three and drained it.
With Jordan Jackson still out, it was up to Fin Porter to step up and that’s what he did in the first quarter, with a couple nifty moves to find back to back buckets and an early Rocket lead.
However, Porter would find himself in first quarter foul trouble. In comes academy player Rhys Grocott in his second game with extended minutes. Grocott would put in an excellent shift in the first quarter and the rest of the game.
However, Owen Chose, who ended the game with 26 points, had kept the Rebels in it throughout the first and four Essex free throws late in the quarter saw the game all tied up at 22.
Both teams would start the second quarter hot, with Essex holding a one point, 30-29, lead just three minutes into the quarter. But the well would dry up for the Rockets for the next five minutes, allowing the Rebels to score nine answered points and balloon the lead to double digits.
However, behind a great team charge the Rockets flipped the second quarter on its head, with Lewis Champion ending the quarter with a fading mid range shot to cut the Essex lead to just two.
Essex, who were both mathematically safe from relegation and mathematically out of the playoff race, would continue to put up a great fight throughout the third.
The two teams traded buckets throughout the quarter, however the Rockets managed to turn a two point deficit at the start of the quarter to a one point lead at the end.
For the Rebels it had turned into the Jake Enyon show. Enyon would finish the game with an incredible 40 point, 11 assist and five rebound game but in the third he was single handedly willing his team to stay in it. Enyon scored 16 of the Rebels 24 third quarter points.
The fourth quarter is where the Rockets launched off, dominating on both ends of the ball.
Reading opened with a three minute 10-2 run off the back of Champion and Cracknell. Then Champion and Pinnock combined for the next 13 points in a three minute span to balloon the lead to 12 and the Rockets never looked back.
The score was 99-88 and the Rockets had the ball with just over 24 seconds left. The game was over but the crowd desperately wanted 100. So Pinnock dribbled into the lane and chucked up a lob to Porter who hammered it home and put the emphasis on 100, much to the crowd’s delight.
Just one weekend remains in the regular season for the Rockets and it’s a double header. On Saturday the Rockets travel to Uxbridge to take on the Thames Valley Cavaliers. On Sunday, the Rockets play their final game of the regular season at home to the Solent Kestrels.
