The Medway Park Crusaders suffered a significant loss at the weekend losing to the undefeated Derby Trailblazers 89-40.

Crusaders travelled without starters Adrian Fenyn and Joe Schow who were among 4 Crusaders missing due to injury.  However, this is not meant to take away from a well earned Derby victory.

Crusaders’ Head Coach James Vear was very impressed with the Trailblazers, “Derby are an excellent team who I think could be an early favourite for the league.  They are extremely well coached and have a great team balance where they can hurt you in so many ways.”

Crusaders actually opened the scoring with a basket from Canadian Joe Schow.  However, this would be the only lead they would hold all game.  Derby quickly went on a 9-0 run to establish their lead.  Back to back 3 pointers from Gareth Laws cut the deficit to 11-8 before Derby reeled off another 7 straight points on their way to a 20-10 lead at the end of the first.

Derby continued to pour in on in the second quarter as the lead kept growing.  By halftime they were up 41-19 with both Rashi Kakad and Troy Whittignton already in double figures for the Trailblazers.

The second half was more of the same as Derby went on to score at least 20 points in all 4 quarters.  Comparatively Crusaders scored no more than 12 in any quarter.

The lone high spot for Crusaders was Gareth Laws who connected on 5 3 point shots for 15 points.  Overall Crusaders were 6 of 30 (of which Laws was 5 for 9) from 3 point land for the game.  With Derby sitting in a zone for the entire game, Crusaders poor outside shooting cost them significantly.

Unsurprisingly, Vear was very disappointed with the team’s effort, saying, “It was a low for the team tonight, not only was the result extremely disappointing but the fight the team showed was non existent at times.  Like I have said to the guys there were no positives tonight except the play of the two academy players Fred (Whitehouse) and Ib (Ibrahim Omer) who did themselves proud with their play and attitude, a lot of our guys could learn a lot from the way they approached the game.”

With the loss Crusaders fall to 0-4 in their National Trophy group.

Long serving Crusader JP Dimandja did achieve a significant milestone in the game.  His appearance allowed to move past former captain Pete Ayling into 5th on the career games list.

Next week Crusaders host London Capitals, who have also lost all 4 of their National Trophy games.  This match will be a prelude to both team’s opening EBL1 game, which also takes place at Medway Park the following Saturday.

Capitals were in the BBL two seasons ago before dropping back down to EBL1.  They continue to feature some of the players who represented them in the BBL and will be a test for Crusaders.

Medway Park do not expect either Fenyn or Irving to return from injury in time, but are hopeful that Sam Salter may be ready on time.

Vear is not really focusing on Capitals at this point.  “The team have a lot of soul searching to do, we need to come together as a team and tackle the challenges head on.  Over the next few weeks we will see if the team are willing to fight or if they are going to let this season be a long difficult one.”