Rossendale Raptors went top of the National Basketball League Division Four North – but only for 24 hours.

The Raptors, with playmaker and top-scorer Steven Gayle, showed their strength in depth but did make hard work of beating bottom club Oldham Titans on Saturday.

Still, they hit top spot, displacing Stockport Falcons who they beat last week. However Stockport won on Sunday and so it was a brief stay at the top for the Rossendale side.

The Raptors have exceeded all expectations this season.

But Saturday was a nailbiting game as, in a match in which they were meant to run out comfortable winners, Oldham took the game to the final seconds with the Rossendale side just squeezing a 68-64 victory.

Saturday’s clash started slowly but Raptors went into an early lead thanks to good conversions by Aitor Estrada and captain Mark Cowell.

The Oldham side fought back and, after several changes of lead, Raptors finished the quarter narrowly ahead, 20-19.

Although not playing to their potential, the valley side were not worried as they have a habit of wearing down sides as the game progresses.

Coach Fry rang the changes for the second quarter and Raptors flew into a 12-point lead without reply in the first three minutes and stretched that to 20 points by the fifth minute of the quarter.

After this though the team struggled and, following mistakes and turnovers by Raptors, the Titans finished strongly, cutting the lead back to only seven by half-time.

The Raptors coaches attempted to get the team back on track with their half-time talk.

Traditionally the third quarter is when Raptors pull away from their opposition but, after an encouraging start when they stretched the lead to 13 points, the Rossendale side only scored two points in the last four minutes of the quarter, totalling only nine points for the whole of that session while the Oldham side were restricted to 10.

This was a season-low for Raptors who average 22 points per quarter.

Throughout the game Titans had relied on the individual scoring abilities of their captain Gent and Roberts, who was effective close in to the basket, and these two kept the Oldham side in contention going into the final quarter.

After a reasonable start, the Raptors again fell apart offensively and allowed Titans to continue to edge back through strong moves by Roberts and Gent.

Raptors brought on Kay to add more control but, with less than a minute to go, led by only four points.

A final time out by coach Fry, with 50 seconds to go, emphasised the importance of keeping possession of the ball and using up those tense seconds.

With the help of a key interception by Slabu and one or two cool heads, Raptors held onto their four-point lead and breathed a sigh of relief at the final whistle.

Estrada was top man for Raptors with 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

Cowell had a good all-round game with 12 points and 10 rebounds while Slabu scored 12 and took 14 rebounds.

Lindsay also contributed a valuable 10 points.

The Raptors coaches, who were expecting a more comfortable win, were relieved in the end that they had managed to grind out a win to keep them in contention at the top of the table.

They did, however, admit there was still a lot of work to be done in training to ensure more consistency in the remaining games to be played next year.

http://menmedia.co.uk/rossendalefreepress/sport/s/1468835_raptors-have-short-stay-at-top