Edinburgh Wins first Scottish Duel in Premier League

For the first time there are two Scottish teams in the BUCS Premier League North this season. After Edinburgh made its debut in the league in 2009-10 they are joined by Glasgow this year. They face four English teams in the league; Durham, Northumbria, Leeds Metropolitan and Worcester. Three games into the season it looks like this duel will be significant because it could be more than a match between two Scottish universities with strong academic reputations; it could be a battle against relegation.

In any case, in this third game of the season one of the two Scottish schools would get its first win of the season after they both held their own, but struggled to match the likes of Leeds play by play in previous matches. The two Scottish teams face a tough task in keeping up against teams that have long established themselves at this level, and have greater funding and ties to professional teams.

The game in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall was close throughout the first quarter. The teams took turns scoring, Edinburgh’s Eric Gross opened the scoring and John Bustin came right back with a three pointer. Ian Black in turn answered with a three of his own for Edinburgh and Bustin quickly followed with two to tie the game at 5. That was the picture in the first quarter; neither team could get a significant edge. This would change in the second quarter that Glasgow would come out of with a 5 point edge thanks to Calum Nicol’s strong play and Ugnius Zaslmauskas’ three point shooting. Glasgow kept this edge throughout the third quarter, despite Eric Gross and Mike Kirkpatrick coming to life for Edinburgh with 8 points each in the quarter. It was John Bustin’s 14 point third quarter that preserved Glasgow’s lead. Nonetheless it was Gross and Kirckpatrick again who led Edinburgh’s comeback in the fourth quarter after Nicol had increased Glasgow’s lead to 10 with 6:00 minutes remaining in the game.

Edinburgh’s 10 point comeback was completed by a couple of free throws from Ben Warrington to tie the game at 65 with less approximately 3:00 minutes remaining. Theme alert; more Warrington free throws to come up later. After Zaslmauskas‘ fourth three pointer in the game and an and-one by Ian Black the game was tied at 68 with 2:00 minutes left. With both teams in the penalty the last seven points of the game would all come from free throws. First Glasgow could not stop Gross, who proceeded to keep his composure at the line and give Edinburgh a 70:68 lead with less than a minute to go. Bustin responded similarly cold blooded after he came of a high screen and got fouled by Edinburgh’s help defense. Tied at 70 with the shot clock turned off, the game clock at around 20 seconds and Edinburgh possession the stage was set for the most dramatic of finishes; a buzzer beater. Of course the ball was in the hands of the most experienced player and best ball handler in the gym; Edinburgh’s Mike Kirkpatrick dribbled the ball across half way to then calmly pull it back and let time tick of clock. With around 8 seconds left in the game Kirkpatrick made his move, crossing his defender over from right to left and pulling up for an off balance three from the top of the arc. His shot was off to the right but there was just enough time for first year student Ben Warrington to grab the rebound and get fouled on his put-back attempt as the buzzer sounded. With the resolve of a veteran and no time left on the clock, 19 year old Warrington hit both his free throws and gave Edinburgh a 72:70 away win over Glasgow.

This comeback victory marks Edinburgh’s first win of the season and indicates what a classic the second leg in Edinburgh on February 15th 2012, at 17:30 in the university’s CSE will be. Until then both teams will hopefully have managed a few upsets of the English competition to keep both of them in the league, this hard fought match showed that they both deserve to be where they are.