The Hornets register their first ever win over Rainford, letting go of a one time 22 point lead to win by the closest possible margin.

Rainford started strongly and quickly raced into a 5 point lead and locked tight their defence but they had only brought 7 players to the game and Coach Pickard was able to make changes to Holmes Chapel to apply pressure to Rainford as they started to tire. Jon Print was able to drive in to gain points from the free throw line and Danny Wareham landed a well worked 3 pointer to level the scores. Paul Coleman and Guy Johnson scored from close range and James Howard landed a 3 pointer on the buzzer to give the Hornets a 3 point lead.

The Hornets upped the tempo in Q2 applying all their bench strength and using a full court press defence to sap the energy from Rainford. Danny, Guy and Paul all scored early in the quarter and Tush turned up the heat with a 3 pointer and then a trade mark drive. Sam Barnard and John Whelan landed Jump shots and a magnificent quarter was finished off with a Dunk from Barney. The Hornets were 11 points up at the break.

Q3 belonged to Barney. He was rebounding at both ends, scoring off jump shots and drives as well as close in and providing assists. The Hornets were miserly in their defence too after 5 minutes Rainford had only scored 4 points and the Hornets held a 22 point lead. Rainford looked tired and were in foul trouble - this looked like being a rout for Holmes Chapel. But nobody had shown the script to Rainford and they started to chip away at the lead with some fine outside shooting and short drives. At the same time the Hornets scoring dried up. The Hornets were being fouled but failing to convert free throws and only scored 1 point in the last 4 minutes of the quarter - but still finished 16 points ahead going into Q4.

Amazingly the Hornets looked anxious in Q4 and Rainford sniffed an opportunity dropping some jump shots and a 3 pointer to reduce the margin. The Hornets tried too hard at times and fumbled in offence when they needed to play patient basketball. The hornets scoring had dried up apart from a couple of drives from Tush. But with 2 minutes to go the Hornets still had an 8 point lead. Rainford were now rejuvenated though and played out of their skins even fast breaking to whittle the lead down to one point. An unnecessary foul then put Rainford on the Line with 31 seconds to go and the Hornets called a hurried Time Out to discuss how to get out of the disaster situation. Fortunately for the Hornets both free throws were missed and the "Iceman" John Whelan bagged and excellent basket from close range to ease worries.

There was still time for two more free throws from Rainford though and this time they landed both. Holmes Chapel were 1 point up with 6 seconds to play and managed to hold on to start 2008 with a victory.

Holmes Chapel v Rainford