Thunder in a spin as they lose thriller

With over-time looming, Kyle Carey drove to the hoop and scored with a single second remaining to seal the win for the visitors. After the Thunder time-out, Brendan Okoronkwo took the inbounds but Josh Brown was unable to get a shot off before the buzzer sounded.

Thunder coach Daniel Hildreth said: “Down the stretch, we gave ourselves an opportunity to get back in and maybe take the game to over-time. There was a miscommunication maybe on the last possession for us, which led to an advantage for Lancashire going into the last second and controversially the buzzer goes off and the game is done.”

Tom Ward and James Cambronne led Thunder with 22 points, with the latter pulling down ten rebounds for a double-double. Brown added 20 points and eight rebounds.

Ward got Thunder off and running with a long three-pointer, which cancelled out Mike Bernard’s early score for Spinners. For the first three minutes, both sides found the basket relatively comfortably, as Louis Allen drained a three from the corner for a 11-8 Worthing lead.

Lancashire went back ahead at 20-19 but Thunder quickly snatched the lead back and led 26-24 after one quarter.

The sides traded baskets during the second period and Worthing were 45-43 ahead at half-time.

Five points in quick succession from Connor Murtagh gave the Spinners a 50-47 lead early in the third, which was answered on the next possession by Allen. Lancashire though held a five-point lead before Allen again hit from deep to narrow the gap to 56-54.

As the third period wound to the last two minutes, Thunder forced three turnovers to end the quarter on an 11-3 run, which included two triples from Brown, to lead 72-67.

Lancashire replied with a 11-2 run to start the final quarter as the visitors went 75-74 ahead.

Tomas Seduikis found his groove midway through the fourth as he scored back-to-back buckets inside to tie the game at 79-79, before Allen hit a triple from the corner to swing the pendulum back in Worthing’s favour.

However, Lancashire had the answers in the final minutes and Carey sealed it in the final second.

Thunder travel to London Lituanica on Sunday (1pm).

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!