There was a tight finish at Wellsprings Leisure Centre as Bristol Academy Flyers scored four points in the final eight seconds to win 86-85 against neighbours Taunton Tigers. Hosts Tigers had led 25-18 at the first break and were still ahead by four at half-time. That lead was doubled with a 24-20 third quarter and Taunton had looked likely to wrap up the victory until the grandstand finish. Bristol’s Tyronne Treasure led all scorers with 21 while Gareth Till and Joe Grazioli each hit 19. Joe Andrews and Paul Yabsley each scored 15 for Tigers, with Rich Anderson adding 13.
With just 8 seconds on the clock and Taunton looking at their first competitive win in 12 meetings between the two clubs it seemed all they had forgotten to do was to tell Tyronne Treasure after he stole the ball twice leading to 2 scores for Flyers which gave them a 1 point victory in what has to be one of the closest games Flyers have played from many years.
“This was a game that looked like we had thrown it away, Taunton had done there homework and played extremely well. They were able to prevent us from doing what we wanted which hurt us. We were unable to find our big guys and made far too many mistakes. However,  after all is said and done we have still won a game and I think that Taunton will feel pretty low about it all, they had the opportunity and some how in eight seconds lost it. We will prepare for our next game and hope to pick up another win. This year’s league is the closest it’s been for many years without an outright favourite every team has its chance to do well. We need to be consistent and we cannot hope that we can win games like this every week because the next time this happens we may not be so lucky” Quotes Andreas Kapoulas, Head Coach.