Surrey United secured their first away win of the BBL season at WISE Basketball Arena on Friday night with an impressive 74-91 win over Bristol Flyers, inspired by a huge 32 points from their guard Kirk Crecco. It had been announced earlier on that day that star Flyer Doug Herring could miss up to six months of action after undergoing knee surgery and Bristol could not overcome a resurgent Surrey side later that evening.
Fellow BBL strugglers Bristol had lost six of their last eight league games going into this fixture, but United were still considered underdogs having not won any of their last six, since beating Glasgow Rocks at the beginning of October.
Before the game, Bristol forward McLaughlin-Williams had expressed his frustrations at a lack of killer instinct in matches, putting their poor run of results down to the fact that they had not been putting teams to bed after being in winning positions.
He said, “I just think we were in the position to win a few more games that we haven’t, so that’s definitely something I’ve learned. This is a competitive league, and when we are eight to ten points up on opponents we need to have that killer instinct to put them away. Obviously that is easier said than done.”
Bristol Flyers 74 (17, 33, 64) (Seilund 24, Lautier-Ogunleye 17, Bland 16)
Surrey United 91 (27, 54, 67) (Crecco 32, Setty 27, Dusha 19)
In this one, Bristol struggled to adapt in the early stages, falling 10 points behind after 10 minutes. United were in control for much of the contest, leading after each of the first three quarters, but Bristol looked like they could snatch it when a Mathias Seilund’s three-pointer put them in front early in the final period. However, Crecco responded by scoring Surrey’s next 11 points, to Flyers’ three, giving his team the impetus to get over the line and record an important victory.
Trevor Setty also made a big impact for Surrey scoring 27 points, whilst Kramer Knutson added 19 points and 13 boards. And Seilund led the Flyers’ scoring charge with 27 as youngster Dwayne Lautier-Ogunley built on his growing reputation with 17 points and seven assists.
Kirk Crecco commented after the game, “Our win against Bristol was great for us and will hopefully serve as a solid turning point going into the important stretch we have coming up at the end of this month and into December. My team-mates did a tremendous job of finding me in advantageous positions and fortunately, the shots were falling.”
Surrey United will next welcome Cheshire Phoenix on Friday 28 November as part of the One Big Weekend at Surrey Sports Park. Tip-off will be at 7.30pm and tickets are available now from £10 adults and £5 juniors HERE.
James Martin