Essex & Herts Leopards 55 (15,26,42)
Leicester Riders 75 (22,37,52)

Leopards found BBL high-flyers Riders too strong, despite a good performance against their full-time opponents.

The Big Cats produced a fighting display against a side who are lying second in the BBL and had defeated leaders Scottish Rocks the previous night.

Errol Seaman (pictured) led the home side with 16 points and 14 rebounds despite being up against the vastly experienced Tony Holley and England international, and former Leopard, Robert Reed. The home side started slowly, as Riders scored the first seven points, but a three-pointer from Sam Salter and a Demetrice Williams basket off Salter’s assist saw them level the score at 10-10 with three minutes of the period remaining. Riders answered with seven straight points, but four points from Williams helped Leopards remain in touch at the first break, trailing 22-15.

The Big Cats struggled offensively during the opening four minutes of the second period, with only a single free-throw from Williams, and a McHenry basket took Riders’ lead up to 12 with three minutes remaining. A technical foul on coach Jon Burnell did help the home side, but successful free-throws from Williams and Seaman sent Leopards into the locker room trailing by 11.

That deficit grew to 15 as Leopards failed to score in the first three minutes of the second half, but five straight points from Troy Selvey saw Riders’ coach Karl Brown call at time-out with 4:58 on the clock. That break failed to halt Leopards, and a rare successful “and-one” from Roger Lloyd took the Riders’ lead back into single figures before a pair of Daniel Sandall free-throws gave Riders a ten-point advantage at the final break.

A Salter score took the Riders’ lead back down to eight with 8:23 remaining, but that proved to be as close as Leopards got as the visitors cored a pair of three-pointers in a 10-0 run to effectively wrap things up. Leopards refused to give in, but coach Burnell took the opportunity to give rare outings to Skye Buck and Ed Gregory, as well as a debut to James Warwick, with Buck and Gregory both getting on the scoresheeet, and it was Lloyd who wrapped up the scoring off a Williams assist to end an encouraging – if unsuccessful – evening for the Big Cats.

Leopards: D Williams 18, E Seaman 16, T Selvey 7, S Salter 5, R Lloyd 3, S Ogunjimi 3, E Gregory 2, S Buck 1, D Jones, B Moore, J Warwick.