Hainault Stars, last season's champions, were back at Sydney Russell on Thursday night seeking to avenge the season's opening game defeat to Erks. Unfortunately they ran into Coach Bromfield's Erks 2 side that was on fire!

New guard Dave Passacantilli started proceedings with a trey and then a two. The next Erks offense saw Lee Atkinson stepping up with nice jumper, followed by Paul Hayden sinking a sweet 10 footer from the left side. Another Dave Passacantilli field goal followed and then Nelson de Miranda registered his first deuce of the night. Finally in the fifth minute Conference star Dave Churches opened his account with a trey taking the Erks lead to 16 - 7. By the end of the quarter the Erks were 17 points in front of a bewildered Hainault.

Even though the Erks' offense was running smoothly, Coach Bromfield was very keen to ensure that the defense also stayed tough. He identified two objectives: the first one, to stop Hainault's (and Founder's Cup Erk) Keith Pringle from scoring, was delegated to Dave Pascantilli who impressively restricted Keith to only two treys and one field goal in the first half. The second task was to control the boards at both ends but particularly defensively since Hainault have some very strong and capable inside players. Paul Hayden was helped in this task by Dave Churches, his first appearance in an Erks 2 jersey this year, and from the bench by Richard Williams and Pete Horrell.

The second quarter was fairly even as both teams traded baskets however with the damage from the first quarter counting the Erks went into half time 46 - 27 in front.

Frustrated by their lack of success, Hainault introduced a more physical dimension to their game in the third quarter however, instead of disrupting the Erks, this seemed to motivate them further and, by the end of the third, the Erks had a very comfortable thirty point cushion, 70 - 40.

The fourth quarter started off fine for the Erks with Pete Horrell scoring an unopposed lay up straight from Dave Churches' tip off. Unfortunately with the game essentially over the Erks offense went off the boil some what and poor shot selection coupled with some slightly less motivated defense allowed Hainault to inject some respectability into the score. Finally with five minutes remaining, Hainault's Sean Reed (another former Erk) stepped up to claim the game's "Garbage Time" title. Sean scored a whopping 15 points including a trey right at the end in this final period to comprehensively win the title.

Coach Bromfield was very happy with the win saying that this was probably Erks 2's best performance this year. He said that it was an excellent all round performance with everyone on the team contributing.

Most pleasing however is that guards Nelson de Miranda and Dave Passacantilli are getting better with every game. Paul Hayden also had a big game inside showing off some of his impressive, but rarely seen, inside moves. Finally Lee Atkinson demonstrated again that his outside threat is as potent as it ever was delivering 16 points. If you've got a motivated team with great guards and good inside players then you can start to compete and the Erks are getting better every game. Erks 2's next game is at Sydney Russell on Thursday 28th November against Lakers.

Erks scorers:
Dave Churches 31, Dave Passacantilli 18, Lee Atkinson 16, Nelson de Miranda 12, Paul Hayden 11, Pete Horrell 4, Richard Williams

Hainault scorers:
G. Hill 18, K. Pringle 17, S. Reed 15, V. Goddard 10, D. Bouskila 6, D. McDonald 2