Sanderson-Weatherall sponsored Rossendale Raptors went into last Saturday’s fixture at Bradford Dragons with only five games between them and a possible National League Division 4 title. Following the run of 14 successive winning games, the Raptors coaching team were ever wary of a “hiccup” in the team’s final push to success. However Saturday’s game
eventually turned out to be “business as usual” for the valley side.

In front of a crowd of several hundred in the “Dragon’s Den” Raptors were slow to settle and allowed the home side to build a lead of six points mid-way into the first quarter, mainly due to easy close in baskets. However as the quarter progressed Slabu and Allerston hit good shots from the top of the key and Estrada chipped in with two key three-pointers and with some help from play-maker Gayle the Raptors finished the first period level with the home team at 24 points apiece.

At the start of the second quarter the Rossendale side were really hot and scored twelve points in succession whilst holding Dragons from scoring for four minutes. When eventually the Bradford side started to score again, the Raptors responded with a series of three-pointers from Estrada, Gayle and Slabu. Continued pressure from all the Raptor’s players ensured that the scoring drive continued and the half finished with two enormous slam-dunks from Raptors’ Jon Slabu.  A disappointed Dragons team had conceded 35 points in the session to only 18 scored. 

Despite the 17 point lead going into the second half, the Raptors’ coaches were unhappy with some aspects of the Rossendale sides defence and asked for more from their team in the half time talk. Bradford came out firing after half time, and despite Raptors best efforts, by half way through the quarter, the home side had reduced their deficit to only eight points, helped by several scores from their promising seventeen year old Donaldson.  In response, Gayle for Raptors stepped up to score the next ten points for his side and stretch the valley sides lead back to 77 to 66 with the final quarter left to play.

Any fears of a close game were swept away in the final quarter when Raptors again went on the rampage and swept the opposition away.  With Gayle unstoppable from any range, including an awesome “dunk”, the rest of the team joined in the points fest, outscoring the opposition two to one and again scoring 35 points in a quarter. The final whistle went with
the Raptors victorious by thirty scoring 112 to Dragon’s 82.

Incredibly Gayle finished with 55 Points, 7 Rebounds and 8 Assists, he was ably assisted by Slabu with 17 Points and 9 Rebounds.  Estrada contributed 14 Points and 10 Rebounds

Coach Jim Fry commented, “I’m delighted with the result because Bradford are a very good team with some excellent players. We played well in spells today and did enough to deserve the win. After winning so many games in a row we’re constantly battling to keep the players from getting complacent and as coaches we are always pushing for improvement. We’ve worked so hard this season that we don’t want to have any mistakes in the final few games. Steve makes a big difference to our team, and is a quality player, but we have six guys on our team averaging double figures in points and it’s our strength in depth”

Raptors march on with just four games remaining in National League 4 North to go.