Sheffield Elite returned from a successful trip to Portugal and were straight back into U18 Prem action with a home game against Derby Trailblazers on Thursday night. 

Sheffield Elite would start the game with Kelvin Talbot, TJ Prado, Luke Baldwin and also give first starts of the season to O'Daniel Creary and Amir Khan. The game began with patient offence from Elite with O'Daniel hitting the first shot of the game from behind the arc for Sheffield. The game would continue to be very back and forth with neither team pulling away from each other. 9 points from TJ Prado and a 3 to end the quarter from George Andrews sent Sheffield Elite into the 2nd quarter up, 20-18. 

Great defence from Harry Butler and a strong finish inside from Vermon Mabou set the tone for the quarter as they looked to pull away from Derby. Sheffield began to find the hot hand as the quarter connecting on 4 shots from behind the arc, with Harry making 3 and Alex Munier adding another one. More great defence from Harry and some easy scores inside from Kelvin and Vermon saw Sheffield extend the lead to 18 towards the end of the quarter. A 27-13 quarter in favour of Elite would see them go into the half time break with a 16 point lead, 47-31. 

Sheffield Elite began the 2nd half with a clear intention to build on the lead they had with strong drives to the basket and finding some easy looks. Derby were not detered by this and continued to try and keep themselves in the game. Sheffield made the most of their trips to the free throw line, picking up 8 of their 21 points, and scores from George Andrews, TJ Prado and Alex Munier meant the Sheffield side would go into the final quarter up, 68-49. 

Knowing they would need to make a run, Derby came out into the final quarter strong and would cut the lead down to just 10 points with 5 mins left to play. With 6 minutes played on the quarter Sheffield had only score 3 points but a strong move to the basket from Vermon Mabou extended the lead back out to 10 points. The U18 side continued to struggle offensively, only picking up 2 points from Kelvin Talbot at the free throw line and 3 from Derby would make it a 6 point game with 1 min left to play. Sheffield Elite remained composed on the ball and worked the zone to try and find an open luck. Unfortunately this didn't come and Derby would have 38 secs to try and mount a comeback. Good defence forced an airballed 3 and Sheffield came up with the ball with 30 secs left. Derby forced a turnover and went on to make 2 free throws but Sheffield would hold on to win the game 78-74. 

TJ Prado led the scoring for Sheffield Eite with 17 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists. Kelvin Talbot contributed another double-double with 14 points and 13 rebounds, whilsts Harry Butler scored 11 points in 13 mins on 33% shooting from behind the arc.