TEAM Solent Kestrels continued their National Cup title defence with a resounding 80-56 victory on the road at Derby Trailblazers, writes Jack O'Keeffe.

The win sees Kestrels punch their ticket for the semi-finals in the new year and where they’ll play host to Barking Abbey London Lions at the SSC on Sunday, January 9.

The sides started in back and forth fashion, much like the league clash earlier in the season, as Malcolm Smith scored in side for the hosts whilst Cole Gentry and Elliot Dadds got the scoring moving for TSK.

It was Kestrels who made the firstly meaningful run as they strung together seven unanswered, started by a Brendan Okoronkwo triple and capped off by a Dadds put back, to force a Trailblazers timeout with 2:17 left in the first.

Kestrels now up 21-13 they would set about pushing the deficit to double digits, as they held Derby scoreless for the rest of the period, going into the quarter break now up 29-13.

Kestrels took the defensive pressure up to a whole new level in the second quarter as they held Derby scoreless until the 3:36 mark, which would amount to over 10 minutes of play where the hosts were unable score. Meanwhile TSK poured in the offensive execution with a balanced scoring effort, including nine Elliott Sentance points in five minutes and Andre Arissol taking his personal tally to 11. Kestrels would lead 49-25 at the interval.

The pace of the game slowed somewhat in the third as neither team were able to find full flow offensively and when they did it would be at the same time. Kestrels continued to limit Trailblazers primary playmakers whilst Gentry and Luke Busumbru continued to tick the scoreboard over for the visitors. Kestrels would take a 66-44 lead into the final 10 minutes.

Orlan Jackman scored TSK’s first five points of the fourth quarter before Sentance came off the bench to stroke his fourth triple of the afternoon. However if the pace had slowed down in the third, the fourth saw an almost standstill in the scoring, as both sides were unable to put any consistent runs together with the quarter score 14-12 in favour of the Kestrels.

The lead would reach 30 before some late steals and lay ups from the hosts cut the gap to 24, seeing TSK reach the semi-finals of the National Cup for the fifth consecutive time.

Pleased head coach Matt Guymon said: “This was a fantastic response from the guys, where we were able to set the tone defensively from very early in this game which fuelled our offensive production in transition.

"We still have some strides to make with our offensive execution in the half court and will have to continue to focus on that area.”

Team Solent Kestrels were led by Busumbru’s 15 points on his return to the line up, whilst Arissol added 14 points, five assists and five rebounds and Sentance chipped in 12.

Derby’s Blake Bowman had 21 points to lead the hosts and Smith was the only other player in double figures with 12.