Kingston basketballers reach quarterfinals with easy victory

Marc Williams

Sam Odejimi scored 18 points with four steals as Kingston strolled to a 91-53 victory over Roehampton University to reach the quarterfinals of the South Eastern Conference Cup.

The Cougars, who lost to Roehampton by one point in a league game last week, made amends with a dominant display with the entire roster posting at least one point and one rebound.

Alexander Polis, who scored 10 points and five assists, said: “Last week we lost by just a single point and we were all very disappointed with the defeat, so tonight we stepped up, put in the work and got a great win. When we play together as a team we are hands down the best team in the league.”

Kingston had a solid start to the game, keeping their opponents off the scoreboard for the first three and half minutes of the game.

There were many strong performers for the home side including Jamie Sercombe who scored 16 points and Andrejus Purkevic with stats of 16 points, three assists, seven steals and seven rebounds on the night.  

Superb display

But, Odejimi will be pushing for a starting position in the Cougars next game after this superb display. Odejimi came off the bench and was soon in the action, rejecting a Roehampton player at one end and then collecting at the other to score a long two point shot.

Odejimi said: “I just thought about what happened last week and that spurred me on. They are close rivals to us but when we play our best, we can beat anybody.”

After a tight first quarter, which finished 18-14, the cougars came to life in the second. An 18 point unanswered streak left Roehampton rattled and with a lot of work to do in the second half.

Kingston’s confidence was clear to see when with just 0.6 seconds on the game clock, Alexandros Geromosches attempted an audacious half court alley-oop, unfortunately Darragh Ayres was just inches away from completing the play.

Strong game

Ayres also had a strong game. The starter posted stats of 14 points, four steals and five rebounds that helped the Cougars go into the half time break with a strong lead, 42-25.

Polis said: “We started out this year wanting to win every game but we have already lost twice. Now we are going to go extra hard in training and try to win all of our remaining games.”

Roehampton rallied at the start of the second half, playing some nice basketball but good defence from Kingston and sloppy finishing from the away side saw the Cougars pull away to a 25-point advantage half-way through the third quarter.

The second half brought Krzysztof Studniarek into the game for the home side. Studniarek drained a long three point shot from the corner before setting up Sercombe for an easy two with a superb pass splitting three Roehampton defenders.

The third quarter finished 59-36 and effectively ended the away side’s hopes of victory. Knowing this, Kingston began to turn on the style. Sercombe got the crowd going with a huge dunk and then stealing the inbound pass to score another quick layup.

Points began to come easy for the home side with all the players on the roster scoring.

The cougars have even more reason to be happy with the victory after strong performances from development players Kenny Farward and Niall Byrne.

Ayres finished off the scoring with a full court drive and layup, with the final result 91-53.

Odejimi also said: “I think we can go all the way in this cup competition, if we play like we did tonight, I think we can beat any team and win the whole thing.”

Kingston face Chichester University in the quarterfinals in February.