READING ROCKETS held their nerve to progress to the semi-finals of the LLynch Trophy at the expense of Loughborough Riders.
Despite dominating large stretches of the game, a frantic finish saw the Rockets escape with a hard-fought home win against a tenacious Loughborough side who fought to the very end.
Reading started slow, allowing Loughborough to open up a 10-0 lead in the first quarter.
After a strong defensive possession by the Riders, Meshack Lufile secured a well-contested offensive rebound for a putback to stop the bleeding.
A trademark block from Meshack injected some energy into the Rockets, who quickly tallied 10 points of their own thanks to a Jaz Bains three and some more buckets inside from Meshack. A flurry of fastbreak scores allowed the Riders to build another convincing lead, drawing a timeout from Coach Pearson with the Rockets down 19-12. T
The Rockets responded well, shoring up their defence and putting points on the board through a deep Lewis Champion bomb. Late free throws from the Riders’ Justin Hedley saw the quarter end 23-18 to Riders.
The second period began with more back-and-forth scoring, with Tyler Cartaino and Sam Toluwase the beneficiaries of some poor transition defence from the Riders.
With contributions from all positions, the Rockets found some offensive consistency and began to mount a comeback.
The Rockets took the lead, quickly extending it to 38-31 as the quarter wore on.
With half-time looming, the Riders responded well through Hedley and Joe Bielak, who each got to the line for easy scores to cut the deficit.
In the final 90 seconds, however, a textbook two-point jumpshot from Jaz Bains lit a fire under Tyler Cartaino, who was riding high after a dominant league showing the day before. Producing seven points in the final minute, Tyler’s late-half heroics gave the Rockets a commanding 47-36 lead at the break.
A turnover off the inbounds allowed AJ Basi, who started slowly, to hit a dagger from the top of the key to restore a 14-point lead for Reading.
After a Cartaino coast-to-coast layup beat the buzzer, Reading closed out the quarter with a dominant 68-51 lead.
Despite early buckets from Victor Ndoukou, the Riders were unable to close the gap as AJ Basi and Cartiano continued to hit shots from all over the court. With five minutes to go and the match seemingly secure, Harrison Gamble and Greg Wild each connected from deep to build an 8-0 Loughborough run that took the score to 81-70. With the threat of a comeback a real possibility, Lewis Champion answered with his third three of the night.
With their lead cut to two points and just ten seconds left, the Rockets watched AJ Basi take the tactical foul and step up to the line.
AJ hit both to extend the lead to four in what ought to have been the decisive play of the game. It surely looked that way as Reis Pinnock jumped the passing lane on the Riders’ inbound pass, stealing the ball and taking it to the hoop for a powerful dunk, but an Ndoukou three with two seconds remaining cast Rivermead into uncertainty once again.
With so little time, though, the Riders were unable to turn the ball over and were forced to foul, sending Lewis Champion to the line where he split the free throws to end the game.
By Jamie King
