The visitors to Paisley on Friday night sat third in the SBC league with a 6-3 record and after a close loss to City of Edinburgh the week before, they were keen to get back to winning ways. With just one defeat so far this season, St Mirren West College Scotland were joint league-leaders coming into the game and were looking to continue the momentum on their home court. Having met once in the league already this season, St Mirren were convincing winners and went into Friday night’s game as big favourites to come away with the win.
The game got off to a slow start with both teams’ distance shooting causing little concern to the either defence as both teams were extremely tentative in the opening minutes as St Mirren held the early lead 8-4 with eight left to play in the quarter. Opportunities fell to Reign to close the gap and stay with the ever-dominant St Mirren side at the Lagoon, however they were wasteful in offense allowing Cleary and Collins to stretch the lead to 16-6 halfway through the quarter.
The early dominance was briefly halted with Sirrell and Ferguson impressing to haul the Dunfermline Side to within 6 towards the end of the first, however St Mirren went on an impressive scoring run to leave the score at 32-21 by the first quarter buzzer.
Reign’s efforts to stay within touching distance of Saints was undone as the second period got underway, some sharp shooting from beyond the arc by Cleary and the strong depth from the St Mirren bench saw them stroll away from Reign to lead 44-28 with 6 mins left in the half. The game continued in the same vein throughout as Reign coughed up the little possession they had and Saints made sure they punished their opponents taking a commanding 71-39 lead into the dressing room.
With the tie effectively over by half-time Saints ran their bench as Dunfermline had to continue to play with an already depleted side stretched by a number of significant absentees. The third quarter was Reign’s best as young Ferguson showed promise throughout and Nicky Sim found some of his early season form as Reign took the quarter 26-25, still trailing by a no-doubt unassailable margin of 96-65.
As the game moved towards the final whistle both teams kept the game as competitive as possible however Saints were well on their way to win 9 for the season to keep their title challenge on track. Reign’s defeat left their season at 6-4 as they languish in mid-table as their unpredictable form continues. Final score at the full time buzzer 123-83.
