Saturday’s game was the reverse of the previous weekends fixture in Hemel Hempstead, in which a vastly depleted six man Dragons’ side were on the wrong end of a nineteen point difference between the two sides (91-72). This time around, Bradford did add an extra body to their bench, but were without their two three-point shooters, Dave Walsh and Steve Towell.
Ricky Fetske won the ball from the tip, but Micah Savery-Richards failed to make his lay-up count, giving Hemel the opportunity to open the scoring, through a Sam Newman jump shot. It was a lead that the Storm were able to keep throughout the first quarter, which ended at 14-18 in the visitors favour.
Within two minutes if the second period, the Dragons had pulled back to within a single point (20-21) forcing Dru Spinks, Hemel’s head coach, to call a timeout and it wasn’t long before his side had moved back out to an eight point lead and it was now Chris Mellor’s turn to call for time.
From the restart, Zach Gachette saw his three point attempt bounce off the rim, but Jabari Edwards rose above everyone to take the rebound and momentum carried him to the basket where he sank a two. Savery-Richards then reduced the gap to four points and followed it up with another two, whilst taking a foul to send him to the line. With the free throw converted the deficit was now down to a single point. On their next offensive, Rihards Śulcs saw his lay-up bounce off the rim, but this time Gachette was on hand for the rebound and swiftly converted to give the Dragons their first lead of the game (34-33) with just two minutes of the second quarter remaining.