The Hornets visit to the League leaders, YMCA, produced some scintillating basketball of the highest quality, but the Hornets inability to stop the Y's fast break eventually lead to their undoing.

Home court advantage told early in the first quarter as YMCA took a 9-0 lead early on with near perfect outside shooting - while at the same time the Hornets shots landed short. Eventually Hornets found their range, well John Whelan did, he scored 10 points in Q1 out of the 14 scored by Holmes Chapel. The Hornets finished the quarter 5 down with the defence starting to dry up the prolific YMCA offence.

Q2 was played with great defence from both sides to start with. Man to Man defence from both sides with each team made to work hard for baskets. Jon Print and Guy Johnson found points for the Hornets though. Guy working well inside and taking huge offensive rebounds, Jon from the outside with some well set shooting. Sam Barnard and Gary Masson were massive in defence grabbing rebound after rebound and the Hornets closed to a 4 point deficit after 6 minutes of the quarter. A nightmarish 3 minutes ensued where the Hornets turned over the ball 4 times and couldn't stop the YMCA fast break and the Y scored 10 points against one free shot for the Hornets to undo all the previous good work. Jon landed a shot on the buzzer but now the Hornets were 15 down.

The Hornets sprung into the second half and played some of the best defence of the season while finding their range from beyond the 3 point line. Sam Bithell,Tom Lee and Paul Colman all draining perfect 3 pointers with some well worked swing play. The Y had switched to a zone defence though and this had dried up the scoring inside. The Hornets won the quarter and the gap was down to 13 - could an upset still be on the cards?

The Hornets continued to punish from way out with Jon Print now landing a 4 point play and the gap was cut to 9 - but this was the closest the Hornets got as the Y worked their fast break off the zone defence and stretched the lead out. John, Guy and Tom all tried to score from the inside and although they scored 7 from 8 free throws at this stage the Y still hung on for a comfortable victory.