Solent Kestrels v Portsmouth Force
Saturday 21st October 2023

Coach: Andy Lambeth
Assistant Coach: Gareth Williams
Match Reporter: Michelle Williams

Portsmouth Force travelled to Solent University for their first game against the Kestrels this season. As a well known and established team, the Kestrel’s standard of play was high and the Portsmouth boys were anxious knowing this would be an extremely tough game.

Quarter one started off slow, few baskets were made but Portsmouth keeping the Kestrels on their toes and making their presence known. Portsmouth made the first basket with Jon securing 2 points for the team, closely followed by another 2 points from Milan. The boys had momentum and took the lead for a short while with a few early free-throws pushed our points up, but Kestrels retaliated and pushed hard to get on top, finishing the 1st quarter on 21-10 to the Kestrels.

The second quarter saw the Kestrels come back much stronger. The game became heated with both teams working hard to up their scores. Portsmouth won the second quarter on points closing the point gap by 43-35 going into the second half.

The third quarter was dominated by the Kestrels as they pushed to secure a wider point gap, Portsmouth struggled to get their offence going and the baskets just didn't seem to want to drop, Kestrels took full advantage of this and closed the third quarter on 60-44.

The forth quarter Portsmouth must have known what they needed to do to survive and fight back, we showed our strongest play in the game hoping it want too late. The boys knew they had to work hard to close the gap and the boys came together to make that happen. The support from the benches heated up and the audience was louder than ever, the venue came to life and the extra encouragement really spurred them on. Our shots increased as the clock ticked down with Cam scoring a great 3-pointer and Jordan stepping up and crashing offensive rebounds and securing important points. A time out was called with 1:30 left on the clock with the score at 73-68. The Portsmouth boys had completely brought it back and at this point it was anyone's game, with the small amount of time left, the referee was refusing to call fouls and the boys couldn't get inside the Kestrel defence finishing on a well earned and respected 73-69.

It was known this would be potential our hardest game of the season and with am away disadvantage we were against the odds but the boys stayed strong and made the Kestrels work hard for their win.