THE Eagles maintained their fine form with a great second-half showing last night.
Down by 12 points at the half, they produced a superb defensive effort in the second period to take the points and stay at the top of the BBL.
An injury to Charles Smith meant he did not make the journey to the capital. Jeremy Hyatt also did not play and the Eagles were without two big point outputs.
New signing Steve Leven suffered a knock during the game and was a peripheral figure.
It was left to Lynard Stewart to pick up the slack and he top scored with 25 points. Young English forward Darius Defoe also produced a sparkling effort weighing in with 17 points while skipper Andrew Bridge and Olu Babalola had 12 each.
And the man anchoring the effort? Player-coach Fab Flournoy notched up an excellent nine points, nine rebounds and nine assists.
After jumping out to an early lead, the Eagles were pegged back and at the end of the first quarter were behind by 29 – 25.
It got worse in the second period as the home side stretched their lead to 51 – 39 at the break. However, a superb defensive effort in the third quarter saw London restricted to just nine points as Newcastle scored 22 to lead 61 – 60 into the final stanza.
They kept up that pressure in the final 10 minutes and gradually increased their lead as the game clock ticked down.
