England U16s Crush Netherlands in Series Opener

By Bradley Gains on August 10, 2014

England under-16’s continued to build towards this month’s European Championships with a convincing 95-63 win against the Netherlands at UEL on Saturday.

Alan Keane’s side used strong second and third quarter displays as a platform for a comfortable victory to follow up taking the impressive scalp of Croatia in their previous outing.

“There were lots of good things today but plenty of things we can do better, too,” Keane admitted. “We must try to be more consistent and communicate better.”

Carl Wheatle filled the stat-sheet with an all-round showing of 22 points, 7 steals, 5 assists and 4 rebounds while Sam Japhet-Mathias added 17 points and 8 rebounds and Rayell Eytle-Rock scored 13.

England edged the opening quarter 19-14 before storming clear by outscoring the Dutch 30-14 in the second to lead by 21 at the half at 49-28. The hosts continued in the same dominant fashion when play resumed after the break as they further increased their advantage to take an 80-39 lead into the fourth.

The Netherlands salvaged some pride in the final quarter by taking it 24-15 to give them something to take into the second game.

The two teams meet again at UEL today with an earlier tip of 1pm.

Image credit: @CoachKeane14

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