Youthful Titans team come up trumps in taming Dublin Lions

Titans 104

 Dublin Lions 91

In a tense encounter, the Galway Titans welcomed five young players from Athenry to strengthen and bolster their already youthful squad against Dublin Lions at The Jes last Sunday.

The Titans have struggled to find their feet in their first six games of the season, having had only one win on the road against Sligo All Stars a fortnight ago.

In the first quarter, Titans pumped the ball inside American Keegan Ryan who was being treble teamed in a physical encounter. However, on this occasion he had additional support from Jonathan Pesaitis to finish from in close. While outside at the perimeter, Eoin Coughlan nailed two big three pointers to leave the home team 23 to 20 up at the end of the quarter.

In the second quarter, Niall Bree, an excellent young point guard, began to control the offence and assisted in some big scores from Ben Concannon, who nailed some great scores. Jonathan Pesaitis was showing his full range of offensive talent to hit a three and drove to the basket leaving the score 52 to 39 at half-time.

The Dublin Lions started to come into their own in the third quarter with big scores from Igor Markowitz who amassed 30 points in the game, while point guard Mohamed Sabic had 25 points of his own. The Dublin side closed down the threat of Keegan Ryan from in close and it was now game on.

With the Dublin resurgence, the Titans were only four points ahead going into the fourth quarter, 78-74. Toms Fabricious began to find his range in taking advantage of the double team on Ryan. Niall Bree was also finding his shooter’s touch in the paint, ending up with 12 points of his own at this juncture.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.