Young Londoners showing promise

Wednesday, 05 October 2011 10:18

Despite being defeated twice last week London United-Harefield Academy showed a very encouraging rise of form. On Saturday the young Londoners travelled to Derbyshire to play against Killamarsh Arrows.  The United players yet again showed that their performance away from home is seriously affected by travelling.  The first quarter which London United lost by a whopping 18 points set the tone for the game, where despite very good ball movement the Londoners were never able to seriously challenge the Arrows. Their case was not helped by very poor outside shooting and London United Harefield Academy found themselves on a wrong side of a 84-52 result.

Sunday was a completely different story, the leaders of the Patrons Cup, Team Solent arrived to Harefield to challenge the youngsters.  This time round the teenagers from Harefield Academy had no problem with shooting from outside and helped by a very aggressive defence and smart ball movement took an 8 point lead after the first half. In the third quarter the much older and more experienced players from Southampton reduced the deficit to a single point. However London United marshalled by Elvisi Dusha quite easily penetrated Solent’s defence and neither side was able to take a lead bigger than 3 points. Kenneth Kwame and Paddy Bell dominated both boards and Solent couldn’t find the answer Andy Tamayo’s penetrations and Korry Callum’s and Ryan Noel’s outside shooting. The game was an evenly poised affair up to the very last minute when Solent was finally able to capitalise on their experience and advantage in size and secure a narrow 91-86 win.

Coach Majewski was quite delighted with performance of his young side “The entire weekend was quite successful for us. Even during the game against Arrows we have showed pretty good ball movement and aggressive defence. We had a huge problem with an outside shooting and our opponents capitalised on it. The game against Solent clearly showed that we are not far from a win on this level. Our players are 10 years younger than the majority of the opposition, we are learning very fast how to overcame our physical disadvantages. I think our players are getting amazing experience and very soon we will be able to win some games”

The London United-Harefield Academy B team successfully started their campaign in the U-18 league by beating London Spartans 93-87.