The Hornets stun high flyers Trafford and impose only the second defeat of the season on them with some exceptional Basketball in the first half and then hung on against a second half onslaught.

Many teams over the last few seasons have visited Holmes Chapel intent on forwarding their promotion dreams only to find them shattered against the Hornets brave basketball. And so it was again as the Hornets bounced back from their narrow defeat last week.

Q1 started with an exceptional offensive display from the Hornets. 7 Offences produced 7 baskets and after 4 minutes the Hornets were 10 points up. Quality was oozing from the team John Whelan and Sam Barnard were brilliant close in and Jon Print and Andy Rushton were peppering the basket from the outside. This was combined with brilliant defence limiting Trafford to a couple of hopeful outside shots. The Hornets have a strong bench so the introduction of the bench players made little difference although Trafford did score some well worked baskets towards the end the Hornets completed the quarter 10 points ahead.

Q2 couldn't have started better - Guy Johnson stole the ball and released Danny Wareham to score a fast break. The next few minutes became the Guy and John show as each were magnificent in offence both scoring jump shots and returning rebounds. Sam Bithell plopped a trade mark 3 pointer and Tush finished the quarter with a couple of well worked drives - the Hornets had scored 46 in the half and were 22 points ahead. Surely they wouldn't blow another massive lead again?

The introduction of Ploutos Vourliotis at the start of the second half changed the course of the match. The Hornets strong Man to Man defence on him by Jon Print and Tom Lee (in his first match for the Hornets) kept his scoring down but his defensive rebounding enabled Trafford to get their fast break unit going on they started to pile on the points and close the gap. The Hornets were patient in offence but the shots weren't dropping and the confidence of Trafford grew with each passing minute. Barney worked hard to land a couple of shots over his big defender but the Hornets only scored 8 in the quarter and the lead was cut to 6 points going into the last quarter.

The Hornet work rate now went up though and the defence again shut tight. John, Guy and Tom landed points to stretch the lead out again for the Hornets and the defensive rebounding from everyone was superb. Tush and Barney scored from close in to leave the Hornets 10 up with 2 minutes to play. Ploutos now turned on the style for Trafford and scored a couple of unstoppable turn around 3 point shots to cut the lead to 4 points. But the Hornets held their nerve and played out time with Guy scoring at the end to finish off a fabulous performance.

Holmes Chapel v Trafford