Medway Park Crusaders travelled to Leicester in the pouring rain on Saturday needing a win to keep the fading sun shining on its playoffs, and that is what the team got.

The 78-68 result means Crusaders improve its record to 8-13 and stay within four points of the eighth and final playoff place in VCARS.co.uk Division 1.

“The guys showed great effort to battle to get the win away at a tough Leicester side,” says a pleased Head Coach Craig Nicol.

The team was without starting point guard Lukas Volkis, who is out indefinitely with a hand injury. Crusaders spent the week looking at tweaks to its offensive and defensive systems to compensate for his loss and those adjustments came off with good effect.

“Missing Volskis forced us to change a few things around, which included having Canadian import Cole Hobin run the team from the point guard position. He did an excellent job and caused Leicester a lot of problems,” says the coach.

It was Hobin, in fact, who got the team off to a great start by nailing three threes in the opening quarter of the game to give the visitors a 22-18 lead after the first quarter, and the team went on from there. Crsuaders led 35-30 at the half before the home team began to come back thanks to some great shooting from Leicester’s Elliot Sentence, who would finish the game with a tremendous 28 points.

“I thought Sentence had a very impressive performance for the home side and showed he is definitely one of the top shooters in the league, says Nicol.

By the fourth quarter Medway was getting buckets from a number of different players and eventually killed the game with resounding flourish at the end of the quarter for the 10 point win.

Crusaders now have a Saturday-Sunday home double header this coming weekend against two teams in playoff positions. The team faces Tees Valley Mohawks on Saturday and Hemel Storm on Sunday.