ADVANTAGE SCORPIONS IN PLAY-OFF SEMI

SCUNTHORPE have a healthy advantage at the halfway stage of their Cab Direct Championship play-off semi-final against Glasgow.

The Scorpions ran up a 53-37 win in the first leg at the Eddie Wright Raceway with skipper Josh Pickering scoring a 15-point maximum.

A containing job from the Tigers was largely successful until the midway point on the night, but the hosts the extended their lead from four to 16 points with a series of advantages from Heats 9 to 15.

Michael Palm Toft (11) and reserve Connor Mountain (10+1) were also in double figures for the Scorpions, whilst Glasgow guest Tate Zischke was easily the visitors’ best performer with 13 – and they face a serious comeback bid in a fortnight (September 25).

Pickering said: “Earlier in the season, we beat Glasgow by eight points at home, but then we lost by 10 points up there last week. This time around, we’ve got 16 points to take up there, which is a much better situation for us. It’s going to be tough for Glasgow – I feel it’s now ours to lose.

“I told the boys tonight that, first of all, we needed to make sure we never went behind and then we needed to pull ahead.

“After Heat 11 onwards, I was telling them that we now really needed to turn the screws on Glasgow and that’s exactly what we did.

“The boys all stepped up when they had to, and I’m very pleased with our performance and the rest of our team should be too because all they contributed.”

Tigers boss Cami Brown said: “We always knew it was going to be a tough place to go. Scunthorpe are sensational on their own track.

“I think the boys did a pretty good job to stonewall as much as possible in the early stages. But we let it slip in the second half of the meeting. We now have a mountain to climb.

“We will need to find something special now. We know what the target is and over the last few seasons we’ve done well in comebacks at Ashfield. We can do that on our home track.”

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Photo credit: IAN RISPIN