04/03/2017 15:07

FURY OFFICIALLY CROWNED CHAMPIONS 16-17
SONY CENTRE FURY 54 EDINBURGH KINGS 67
Scottish Division 1 Championship Senior Men

Fury BC Senior Men were presented with their Championship season 16-17 Trophy by Basketball-Scotland Board member and basketball aficionado Sandy Sutherland before their final Championship game of the season against Edinburgh Kings at the Mariner SC, Falkirk.
After some kind words from BS CEO Kevin Pringle, the sellout Fury crowd raised the roof as Men’s Captain Keith Bunyan received the Trophy. The fans have been key in the club regaining the Championship title and a special mention was also paid to Fury’s key sponsors –Sony Centre Falkirk, RJM Sports Ltd. and Bee Copy all local Falkirk companies who support the Fury program.
After the medal presentations, there was the small matter of a game that had the crowd involved right to the final minute.
It was the Kings who took the opening period 17-12, but a 21-12 second stanza saw Fury take a 1pt lead into the second half. The second had seen Bunyan and Austrian Adam Hammerschmidt share 4 threes and Fury go on an 14-0 run that gave them lead 28-19. At this stage it looked as though the Champions were going to pull clear, but the visitors were not about to share the Fury party and brought the game to within 1pt. The third saw Kings centre Ali McKay rack up 11 personal and put the capital side 8 ahead going into the final quarter. The fourth incredibly saw Kings score only two open court baskets but added to their 10 free throws it was enough to take the period and a double digit win over the Champions. 
Hammerschmidt top scored for Fury on 14 with Greek forward Greg Foussas on 11.
Fury Headcoach John Bunyan commented to Heraldsport –
“ This was a great night for the club, the team and the fans. To be presented with our 4th Championship title in 5 seasons was amazing. To lose what is incredibly only our 3rd home game in 5 seasons was tough but we executed poorly and paid the price. Stats on the game showed both teams scored the same number of open court baskets. We hit 8 threes to the Kings 4, but the 19-4 scoreline in the Kings favor from the free throw was too much for us to overcome and I know the our fans were unhappy over the foul stats in what was a physical game. 
Full credit to the Kings for defeating us in both our Championship games and clearly we need to ID how they have lost have 5 games, if we meet them in the Play-Offs, which is of course now our focus as we go for the treble!

I would like to thank the fans for making this season and the other 24, special and for our Men to win 10 titles to date over that period, has been down to them as much as anyone. The atmosphere is always amazing and this season our record to date in both the Championship and the Cup of 20 wins and 2 losses means we have finished our time at the Mariner in style! 

 

 

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We had the final regular season Game of the Week this past weekend and it was set to be a special one for Sony Centre Falkirk Fury who bid farewell to their long-term home, the Mariner Centre. Looking to spoil the party were Fury's long-term rivals, City of Edinburgh. 

 

Before the game, Fury were presented with the SBC League Trophy, a testament to a successful season in which the Falkirk side were almost unbeatable. 

 

After the presentation, we had a game to get to, and what a game it would turn out to be. The pace was furious out of the blocks, Kings taking an early advantage with some sharp shooting from Paddy Campbell, who almost single-handedly took down Fury in the previous encounter. 

 

Ross Gibson responded with a soaring dunk to lift his team and the home crowd. The atmosphere was tense in the first, and even though Kings led 17-12 at the end of the first, it felt an even game.

 

Into the second quarter and two of Fury’s leaders began to rally. Keith Bunyan and Adam Hammerschmidt spearheaded the Fury attack which went on a 14-0 run to start the quarter. This not only brought the game level, but gave Fury a commanding 9 point lead, Bunyan scoring 8 including a deep 3 and Hammerschimdt 9 including a tough step-back 3 in the quarter. 

 

Eventually the bleeding was stopped as City of Edinburgh began to force-feed Ali Mackay in the post, to great success then Garreth Lodge and Mackay connected on an alley-oop which Mackay finished with a lovely tomahawk dunk. As the teams headed to the locker rooms, the score was 33-32, and we knew we were in for a toughly contested second half.

 

Following the break, the tense atmosphere continued and the game started to get very lively. City of Edinburgh continued to ensure Mackay touched the ball in the low post on every possession and this worked to their advantage as Mackay made light work of the Fury defence. Kings were slowly building a lead much to the delight of the Kings bench and small but loud contingent of travelling fans, who were going crazy with every point that they scored. 

 

Fury looked undeterred by the Kings' momentum and slowly but surely, began to bring the game back again. It wasn’t for long though as after a Kings missed free throw, Mackay rose up and threw down a put-back dunk all over Fury's Walter Llubeigt, sucking the life out of the Mariner once more. With only 10 minutes remaining in the game, Kings led 51-43.

 

We thought we had seen everything in this game, and still the final quarter was to come. The fourth quarter saw Fury struggle to score over the Kings defence in the opening minutes meaning that the Capital side's lead continued to grow. It looked as though Fury were down and out, Kings holding an 11 point lead with 6 minutes remaining, but Fury came to life and had the deficit at 7 with 3 minutes to play. 

 

Some more free throws for City of Edinburgh pushed the lead back up, and a Paddy Campbell 3 was the dagger to the heart of Fury that ended the game, Kings taking the victory 67-54. The loss put a slight dampener on the night where Fury secured the SBC League Trophy.

 

Fury will now look ahead to a first round play-off match-up against Dunfermline Reign, while City of Edinburgh will face Glasgow Storm back in Edinburgh with the potential of these two sides meeting again in the play-off Semi-Final’s.

 

Sony Centre Fury Head Coach John Bunyan thought his team struggled and will have to work ahead of the play-offs: "We knew it was going to be a tough game, 67-54, while it’s a relatively good defensive performance, offensively we were poor, not shooting the ball well or executing well. I did feel that there was quite a bit of contact that went unchecked however Kings came in looking to win the game and have now beaten us twice this season, but at the end of the day we still have won the league while they finished 4^th. I don’t think we made great decisions early in the game, and ended up playing 5 bigs for a period of time as Eddy and Bryan seemed to be struggling with the pressure. We came back into the game, leading at the half, and again towards the end there. They then made a couple of plays which we struggled to come back from. Full credit to the Kings, of course there’s the possibility of a play-off semi-final matchup and we need to look at how we improve our performances against them, but it doesn’t take anything away from what we’ve done in the league."

 

City of Edinburgh Head Coach Craig Nicol was happy with his teams performance and added the following after the game: "We executed really well, we put a plan in place during the week and we had a few key players back. I’ve always said that we match up very well against Falkirk, and defensively we did our jobs. We came into this game putting a lot of importance on it, we can’t afford to come into games and act like they don’t matter even if the league positions won’t change. It was obviously a big game for them, having the trophy presentation, and it being the last regular season game at the Mariner and always every Kings – Fury game is always a big one so no-one was under the illusion that this would be anything other than a close, hardly-fought game. We have a focused group of guys who stick to the plan and execute, if they want to rile up the crowd then that’s their own prerogative, but we’ll just focus on playing basketball and doing our own things, and it showed on the court. Our individual defence was fantastic, shutting down their players very well and we were able to get some momentum from them not scoring which helped us massively. Ali Mackay struggled a little bit last week so he came out with a little more fire in him, and they certainly struggled to guard so we continued to exploit that and he delivered so I’m very happy with that. We’ve now got to play Glasgow Storm, and considering how close our games have been with them, we’ve got to have a good week of practice and prepare for that game. Our goal is to win the play-offs, we take every game as it comes and hopefully have 3 more games to play."