BEARS BUILD ADVANTAGE

REDCAR established a 16-point lead over Berwick with a 53-37 win in the first leg of their KO Cup tie at the ECCO Arena.

Reserve Jason Edwards starred for the Bears with 13+1 from seven outings, taking extra rides after colleague Jake Mulford was withdrawn due to a Heat 2 crash.

Danny King added 12+1 on his official debut for the home side whilst skipper Charles Wright picked up 10.

Rory Schlein marked his first Bandits appearance with 12 points to top-score for the visitors, but they were hampered by a pre-match crash for skipper Leon Flint who suffered an injured ankle and wrote off his number one bike, before being restricted to a score of three.

Redcar manager Gavin Parr said: “I’m really happy with the performance of the side, apart from Jake crashing in Heat 2 things couldn’t have gone much better overall.

“The second strings (Connor Bailey and Danyon Hume) did more than was expected of them, and that was really encouraging.

“Jason was fantastic for us at reserve, he really stepped up for us.”

Bandits boss Gary Flint said: “In all honesty we wanted to keep it a bit closer, but I cannot fault anyone’s efforts and there were a lot of bonuses to take from it.

“We certainly don’t think the tie is lost. By the time the teams meet for the second leg we will have four more matches under our belts and be fully dialled in.

“We showed the lack of competitive bike time but even though we were probably only 50 per cent there were lots of encouraging signs.”

OFFICIAL REFEREE SCORECARD
Available here

Photo credit: COLIN POOLE