Saturdays game was billed as the head to head clash of the title contenders for the National league Division One championship with last years champions Derbyshire Arrows travelling to London.

London United, the merged team between Ealing and Lords had suffered a shock defeat last weekend versus Westminster were aware of the importance of bouncing back to a victory against Garnet Gayle's well drilled Champions.

Pete Deppisch returned from a back injury for United while scorer Gary Maitland was still sidelined with ankle ligament damage.

The game started brightly for London with Mumuni and Hockey nailing mid range jumpers and then Pete Deppisch stepped up to hit 3 three pointers off of well designed sets for the American.

Marsh and Waite kept Derbyshire close as the first quarter ended 23-15 in favour of London.

Coaches Majewski and Schiller were happy with the intensity the team was bringing and urged them to keep that up. However Derbyshire fought back well in the second quarter outscoring London by 12-23 with spread scoring from Bevington, Waite and Gayle that gave Derbyshire a 35-38 lead at the half.

The half time realisation of a win would only do for the London team was enough to motivate them to perform in the second half eventhough they went some 10 points behind at one stage in the third quarter until Pete Deppisch scored another three, three pointers and Sammy Rahman chipped in with two long range shots.

Suddenly the momentum was going London's way as the game was swinging back to them after they cut the Derby lead down to only one.

The final quarter saw Deppisch scoring freely with Walid Mumuni stepping up on the offensive end. London took a lead of 6 points as the clock ran down and Derbyshire were forced to foul London to try to clawback the game by sending them to the line. That looked to pay dividends as Steve Vear missed his two shots and Garnet Gayle came back to hit a three, however the game was killed off as Deppisch was sent to the line on a further 7 occasions in the last minute to extend the lead to an eight point victory.

The coaches and team were ecstatic to get the win against their bitter rivals from the past and sent out the message to the rest of the league that they mean business this year.

It was a well deserved win for London who fought hard throughout the game.

Peter Deppisch topped scored with an incredible 8 three's and 39 points with 17 from Mumuni and 14 from the workman like Sammy Rahman.

Bevington, Gayle and Waite did the damage for Derbyshire.

This result puts London on a two win, one loss record.

Their next game is against Dudley Bears in Birmingham next week and then they take on North West London at Brunel University on the 7th December at 6pm.

London Squad; Mumuni, Deppisch, Hull, Hockey, Gill, Kitipis, Vear, Burrell, Odulaja and Rahman.

Coaches: Majewski and Schiller

November 26, 2002 13:00