AN under-strength Bolton Bulls wheelchair basketball team travelled to league leaders Sheffield Steelers and came away with a 50-25 defeat.

The Bulls were missing a number of key players and were up against it from the start.

Bolton started with a five on court including: Steve Aston, Tom Eckersley, Graeme Lambert, Dale Speight & Samantha Titterington.

The group of players starting this game for Bolton hadn’t had much match experience as a unit and in the early minutes it showed with combinations possibly not being as sharp as they might have been.

It resulted in the home team opening up an early lead. Fairly soon into the game Bolton got their act together, passing got better and they were able to get back into the game.

After the first quarter it ended with Steelers leading Bolton by 20-6.

The second quarter continued in much the same vein with Jim Heggie coming into the action for a few minutes replacing Sam Titterington.

The Bulls got into their stride and the teams were more evenly matched with the score for the quarter being 10-6 once again in favour of Steelers.

Chasing down a 30-12 deficit was never going to be easy but after a few words of wisdom from coach Tom Eckersley the 2nd half started with Jim Heggie replacing Steve Aston and Chris Courchenne coming into the game for the first time to replace Graeme Lambert .

The third quarter was to prove Bolton’s most productive of the game with some excellent plays coming from the whole team.

This had the home team pushed backwards for periods leading to multiple baskets for Bolton Bulls, most notably from Lambert and Eckersley.

Bolton Bulls took the quarter by 9-8, giving us a score line going into the final quarter of Sheffield Steelers 38 Bolton Bulls 21.

Sheffield made changes in the final quarter started to re-introduce most of their starting players back into the game in an attempt to ensure the score line stayed in their favour.

Scores by Samantha Titterington and Chris Courchenne, who bagged his first points ever for the club in a competitive game, were among the highlights of the final quarter for the Bulls.

Unfortunately, this valiant effort would, in terms of the score at least, prove to be fruitless, the game ending with a score line of Sheffield Steelers 50 Bolton Bulls 25.

n If you want to find out more about Bolton Bulls then visit the website https://www.boltonbulls.com