High Drama Saturday Night in the Super League - Full Report
Saturday night in Canada saw two of the Super League season's most exciting match-ups unfold across Canada. The first being a shock result in Ontario, where the KW Titans were paid a visit by the Derby City Distillers all the way from Kentucky.
League leading KW got off to a good start behind thirteen points from Ja'Myrin Jackson in the first quarter, but in the second the Distillers made full advantage of slack offence from their hosts and went from down by twelve to up by one at half time.
The Distillers began the second half with an 11-0 run, but the Titans slowly erased their deficit from
The teams then matched each other on offence into the fourth quarter where, after five lead changes, the Distillers seized control of the game and with a late surge built a double-digit lead that was too much for the Titans to recover from.
Ronnie Boyce impressed off the Titans' bench with 24 points and 11 total rebounds, Jaquan Lightfoot also managed a double-double with 19 points and 18 boards, while Braylon Rayson finished with 21 points in the loss.
Derby City saw three double-doubles and 26 points off the bench from Tchumsy Wright after they completed one of the biggest shocks of the Super League season, beating the top team 123-114. There was more drama still to be seen over in St. John's, where the Newfoundland Rogues hosted the Sudbury Five.
There was little to chose between the teams in the first half, both seeing a lot of effective team work and bench production, Sudbury's edge in the paint was matched by Newfoundland's greater accuracy from beyond the arc.
That all changed in the third quarter: led by JD Miller, Sudbury built some momentum which kept them in the lead, which reached double digits ahead of the final period of play. There seven points unanswered from the Rogues made it a single-possession game and then went ahead by five, only for Sudbury to tie the scores straight away.
Marquise Collins and Armani Chaney led the Rogues as they fought to stay in front in the face of relentless offence from Sudbury, who then went on a 10-2 run giving them a lead of seven ahead of the final minute. Newfoundland closed the gap to two but a dunk from Sudbury's Deonte Hawkins and a missed three-pointer from Chaney spelled the end of the game and the win belonged to the visitors from Ontario.
Chaney led the scores with 35 points in the loss, Newfoundland also saw 27 from Collins and 23 off the bench by Shandarious Cowart. Sudbury were led by 31 points by AJ Mosby and 29 by JD Miller in their 137-133 defeat of the Rogues.
Despite the loss the Titans remain top of the league ahead of the London Lightning, and Sudbury move into third ahead of the Newfoundland Rogues with time running out ahead of the post-season. Check back here for further results from the Super League and also be sure to check out the league's official website.
