Leopards 81 (20,46,61)
West Anglia Fury 79 (13,35,57)

Leopards survived a fight-back for Fury to open their National Trophy campaign with victory at Wodson Park, on Saturday. Led by 18 points from Gareth Laws and 16 apiece from Nathan Wilson and Carl Lathem-Henry, the Big Cats held on to start their season with a win as Lamar Hull’s last second shot missed the target.

With a new look side built around academy players from Barking Abbey School, the home side started slowly, with only a basket from Lathem-Henry in the first three and a half minutes as Fury took a 6-2 lead.

With both referees calling numerous fouls, two Lathem-Henry free-throws and two from four from Deng Deng kept the hosts in touch before four straight Lathem-Henry saw them take an 11-8 lead.

Leopards’ up-tempo style was clearly causing the visitors problems, and three point plays from Deng, captain Sam Salter and Lucas Volskis sent the Big Cats into the first break with a 20-13 lead.

That lead grew to 12 as Leopards opened the second period with a Wilson basket followed by three-pointer from Laws. That proved to the first of three treys for Laws in the second quarter as the Big Cats took control of the game, opening up a 15 point lead following a Volskis trey with two minutes of the half remaining. They should have wrapped the game up at that stage, but allowed the visitors to finish the half with a 6-2 run to cut the half-time advantage to 46-35.

Scores from Fola Adeleke and Laws saw the lead back up to 15 after two minutes of the second half, but an 11-3 run – Laws hitting another three – put Fury back into the game.

Deng and Greenan put Leopards pack into a 57-47 lead, but as Leopards got into foul trouble the Norfolk side scored ten straight points to level the score before baskets from Adeleke and Laws sent the Big Cats into the final break with a 61-57 lead.

That lead evaporated as Fury opened strongly, and two technical fouls of Laws saw Fury’s player-coach James Bamfield put his side into a one point lead with three-from-four foul shooting. Six straight Lathem-Henry points put Leopards back into the lead, and they were ahead 73-67 going into the final three minutes before young centre Nathan Wilson took over.

The 17-year-old scored eight straight points as Leopards held off the Fury challenge. He caped the run with a pair of free-throws to put the Big Cats up by five with 23 seconds remaining.

Although Richard Milbourne drained three straight treys to keep the visitors in the game, and Sam Salter uncharacteristically missed two free-throws, the Big Cats held on to wrap up their first win of the campaign.