The Kings division four team were in action on Sunday as they hosted SportsAble Rockets and Swansea Storm in their ‘Home’ round of the British Wheelchair Basketball National League.
First-up for Kings was SportsAble Rockets – Who due to not meeting league regulations for classification points* where forced to forfeit the game.
However, both teams did enter the court for a game which could be considered a friendly – the game itself was level for the most of it as Rockets played up to 7 additional classification points over the regulation limit which helped them greatly and the Kings showed great resistance to hold the game at a level pegging. With the lead flipping between both teams in a match which ended in a very rare draw at 24 all. The Kings will register the win however 20-0 due to the forfeit.
The second game of the day between SportsAble Rockets and Swansea Storm ended 6-9 to SportsAble Rockets, again due to SportsAble Rockets not being able to meet league regulations for classification points the game will be recorded as a 20-0 forfeit win to the Storm.
In the final game, Kings faced a determined Swansea Storm team who re-entered the court fired up as the first quarter was an all battle for court supremacy with Corey Bloomfield, Denise Drammis, Dani Willmore and captain Nick Gorst all finding the basket for Kings, the score at end of the first quarter saw Kings edging ahead 11-8. The second started the same as the first with Storm battling to pull the game back before the Kings started to take back control of the game midway through with Willmore on fire as she added another 8 points to the Kings total to take the score to 23-14 at the half-time buzzer.
The second half was completely different than the first with a more defensive game played by both teams as was seen in the scoring. Both teams forced each other to long range or difficult angled shots. The second half saw Kings managing to keep Storm from scoring for the entire half while only netting four points in each quarter themselves – taking the final score to Kings 31 Storm 14.
Kings will have a bye round next with Exeter Otters, Swansea Storm and Sportable Rockets taking to the court in the next round before returning for the final round where it will be Exeter Otters and SportsAble Rockets who will take to the court.
*Classification in wheelchair basketball plays an important role in the sport as the classification uses total points of players to determine who can be on the court. Players are classified for the sport from 1 to 4.5 depending on the player’s functional ability. The higher the point number, the greater the player’s functional ability. With five players on the court, the total number of points may not exceed the limit set by the league.
