The Rebs men took to the Essex Sports Arena on Saturday evening, following on from an impressive performance from the women on International Women’s Day. No pressure, fellas.
The opponents were Hemel Storm, who in Darien Nelson-Henry had an absolute BEAST of a player. He towered above the tallest of Rebs players, and had the muscle to match. This looked like it could be a difficult evening for the Rebs.
Nelson-Henry won the tip off, obvs, and then continued to dominate in both offence and defence. Rebs simply couldn’t out-muscle him. The only option seemed to be to take your chances when he was off the court.
But wait! What’s this?
Nelson-Henry did have a weakness. Shortly into the first, his man bun (stop it) became undone and he had a few hairstyle malfunctions to deal with. No one likes their flowing locks being ruffled.
I turned around to find Queen B - the Rebs lovely mascot - sitting behind me. I offered up one of my sweets for her. It caused a few issues, watching a smiling rubber faced Roman warrior trying to suck on a sweet through the mask. TOP GIRL.
The game was tight, with the scoreboard showing 27-27 at the first quarter. The second followed a similar pattern, with still no separation between the two teams at 55-55.
Some running repairs were needed to one of the baskets at the break. Elsewhere and the Whitney game kept all the kids happy. Once again we had endless snippets of I Will Always Love You being played, with kids lining up to bang the big Rebs drum in sync with Whitney.
Hours of fun…
The third quarter was tight - so much so that I forgot to log the score. Nelson-Henry tired slightly and was living a dangerous game on four fouls. Rebs took advantage, finally pulling away with a wonderful 79-74 home court win.
