Ott leads Thunder to Championship title

They defeated Manchester Magic 102-94 in the English Basketball League Play-offs Championship Final at Newcastle Metroradio Arena to avenge the loss to Manchester in the National Cup Final at Birmingham in January and made up for losing the National Trophy Final to Reading Rockets at Newcastle in March.

It was their fourth straight last hurdle, having lost the Play-offs Final last season to Reading Rockets.

Alfredo Ott was the Most Valuable Player of the Final after scoring 31 points, taking eight rebounds and making four steals. He had 17 points by half-time. Thunder led throughout and were up by nine at half-time, although after being called for seven fouls to none in the third quarter, and Magic coming backat them, by the closing stages of the fourth they were only four points ahead.

Ott, who has been an MVP in a losing College final in the States, told Richard Amey: "There weren't any real nerves. We came into the game confident and felt good after a good week of practice. We changed some things and were determined to stay focused so that, even if Manchester made a run, it would not hurt us too much. We wanted to stay in control this time, we didn't want to lose the lead and we wanted to take care of the ball."

Daniel Hildreth, who has been involved in several losing Thunder finals, added: "Everybody in the team contributed. Everybody played smart. In the past, games have got away from us after we've gone behind but we stayed strong and stayed ahead. It was close at the end but then Marcus Avant made a big three-pointer and we got a couple of good defensive stops. Now we're bringing the trophy home.

"It was great near the end, when I was clapping our supporters, I looked up into the crowd and saw the owners with their arms in the air with Rosemary Dawes running up the stairs to Alan. We've won the league and the play-offs and reached both othe finals.I hope this win is an inspiration to the owners, now, to try to move the organisation on to the next level of basketball."