Bury St. Edmunds Bulldogs Senior Men's Local League side faced a very tough draw away to Brightlingsea Sledgehammers in the first round of the Suffolk Senior Cup.
It was an evenly-matched first quarter with both sides looking to make their mark on the game. Some good finishing from Oli Cowling led Bulldogs in the first quarter with 7 points with scores tied at 19-19. Some strong defence from Ernest Isokpehi, Jay Trye and Jason Sykes in the second quarter put the Suffolk side up 39-31 at the half. The 2nd quarter also saw Callum Sharpe and Kienan Wade make their Bulldogs debut with Sharpe getting on the scoresheet.
Bulldogs started the second half well with David Wise scoring 9 of the team’s 12 points in the quarter before Brightlingsea finished with a run to put them up by 2 points. It was a tight final quarter of the game which saw Bulldogs down by 1 with two minutes remaining despite some good three point shooting from Sykes and Wise.
However, the Bulldogs showed great composure and discipline at the end of the game to move the ball around well to create some excellent scoring opportunities; and managed the clock well in the last few seconds before a big rebound from Isokpehi led the Bulldogs to claim a massive but well earned 72-68 win.
Following the game, Coach David Wise had this to say: "It was a tough win for us today, we stuck to playing our game and kept the ball moving, we never panicked and made some big plays down the stretch to take the win in an all-round strong team performance."
Leading scorers for the Bulldogs were Wise (22), Cowling (15) and Sykes (10).
Next up for the Local League Men in the Suffolk League is their first home tie of the season against Big Dog Ballin on Sunday 7th November, 6:00pm at Culford Sports Centre
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