Taunton Tigers hosted the Derby Trailblazers this past Sunday for the last game of the regular season. The Tigers shot out of the gates with a 13 – 0 run to start the first quarter. Taunton's pressure defense created easy baskets. Sean Clifford led the Tigers charge with 9 of the Tigers first 13 points. It looked like a potential blowout as the Tigers increased their lead to 20 – 3 before Derby finally settled into the game. The first quarter ended at 26 – 16 with Derby's Joe Montgomery beginning to assert his presence.
In the second quarter, Taunton grew their cushion to as many as 20 points with 1 minute remaining until half time with great team defense led by Graham Jones and Kevin Anderson. However, Derby's Simon Spencer led a mini-comeback, which included his last second steal and lay up to end the first half with Taunton up 53 – 40.
The second half became a tactical war of wills. Derby attempted to assert their physical advantages with 6′8″ man-mountain, Stephen Barnes doing most of the damage down low. Derby's Joe Montgomery was also opening up his potent transition game with 9 points in the quarter. Taunton countered with an inside-outside game led by Adam Rickwood and Tim Clifford. Taunton's Richard Anderson, Mike Sebire and Graham Jones battled their bigger opponents in the post, but Derby's size was creating foul trouble for the Tigers. By the end of the third quarter the Tigers lead had been cut to 9 points, 74 – 65.
Derby made its strongest run of the game early in the fourth quarter. They were led by big shots from Simon Spencer and Tom Pereira. The Trailblazers had reduced the Tigers lead to 80 – 79 with 5 minutes remaining in the contest. Taunton responded with continued tenacious defense and big answers of their own on offensive to deny Derby its first lead of the game. Adam Rickwood converted 8 of his 22 points during the last 5 minutes. In the end, Taunton's defense sapped enough energy out of Derby to maintain its wire-to-wire victory: 91 – 86. Taunton was led by a very balanced attack with 7 players having scored 8 points or more (Adam Rickwood 22, Graham Jones 14, Kevin Anderson 11, Tim Clifford 10, Richard Anderson 9, Sean Clifford 9, Joe Saunders 8). The Trailblazers were led by Joe Montgomery (25 points) and Simon Spencer (20 points).
Again Tigers loyal supporters made enough noise to blow the roof off of Wellsprings Leisure Centre. Tigers would also like to thank all the volunteers that give freely of their time to support the Club. We could not do it without you. Roll On 2009-10 season!