Bury St Edmunds Bulldogs Reserves visited the Braintree Blue Devils for a Suffolk Senior League Division 2 game, hoping to repeat their home cup win when the teams met in September.
The first two quarters were hard fought with the Bulldogs' early 8 point lead recovered by Braintree, who finished the half on top 34-27.
The teams traded baskets at the beginning of the third quarter before an 18-0 run by Braintree blew the game open. Late scores by Andy Binns and David Wise stemmed the tide but Bury headed into the final period trailing 58-36.
Playing for pride in the fourth quarter the Bulldogs came out fighting; Increasing the pressure on defence and pace on offence to reduce the deficit to just six points. Final score 71-65 home win.
After the game Coach Glenn Collins reflected on the costly third quarter: “We did a lot of things well tonight. We played good half court defence, passed the ball better than we have for several games and created some good scoring opportunities from it. Unfortunately we went cold for five minutes, our effort dropped and they really punished us.
“I’m thrilled with the way we ended the game. I asked the team not to give up, to dig deep and win the fourth quarter and they delivered.”
Andrew Borkett added "It was a physical game that saw Jim Walker go down with an ankle injury in the middle of our comeback bid in the fourth. Despite that setback, it really felt more like we ran out of time than lost the game."
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