Poor performance from under strength squad provides another loss on the road for Ravens

Killenaleck Titans 77-58 Dundalk Ravens

The Dundalk Ravens suffered their second loss in as many games in a poor start to the second half of the season. The team traveled to Killenaleck to face the titans who the Ravens beat at home by forty points with only seven players. The team missed the experience and leadership of Fu Faapito, also absent where Andrius Burba, David Maguire, AJ O'Neil and Mateusz Karpinski. The Ravens where not helped by arriving at the wrong gym only to find out that the game was in Mullahoran which was another ten miles away. Eventually the team made it in the nick of time only forced to start the game with a technical foul for being late.

The game started without the Ravens getting much of a warm up which was an advantage to the Titans who went on a scoring spree at the start hitting 5 first quarter three pointers which led to a 24-8 first quarter lead. The Ravens where under sized compared to the bigger and more aggressive Titans. The Titans continued to get second chance scores off offensive rebounds. The Ravens finally found their feet in the second quarter with good scores coming from Aaron Lawless and Darren McGovern. Although, the Ravens only managed to close the gap by two points in this quarter. The good man to man defense was the main contributing factor here to help the Ravens settle. Good rebounding by Liam Woods and Mindi Savicius set up some good scores for the Ravens to go into the break trailing 37-23.

The second half began with some belief for Ravens after good scores fell for A. Lawless and L. Woods. Unfortunatley, the Titans continued their hot shooting from the three point line to keep their lead intact which made it difficult for the Ravens to get the lead down to single figures. At the beginning for the forth quarter the Ravens trailed by 13 points. The Ravens needed to find some sort of offensive spark early in the quarter to compete for the win and this happened with a three from D. McGovern and great individual scores from A. Lawless got the lead down to ten points but some good scores from the Titans and some suspect calls from the referees allowed the Titans to cruise to victory which was fully deserved from the start.

This loss leaves the Ravens sweating on results from the weekend to see if they remain in the top four for the end of year playoffs. The Ravens next game is at home to Carrick on Shannon Cougars on Saturday at 6.30pm in Muirhevnamor Sports Centre. Support is welcome and appreciated. Free entry to all spectators.

Team and Scorers

Darren McGovern (13)
Aaron Lawless (31)
John Loughlin
John Rafferty
Mindi Savicius (10)
Liam Woods (4)
Tadas Nerbusitas