WORCESTER Wolves face arguably their most meaningful spell of the season so far with a demanding three games over just five days.

Fourth-placed Sheffield Sharks head to the University of Worcester Arena in the British Basketball League on Friday (7.30pm).

On Valentine’s Day on Sunday (3pm), there is likely to be little love in the air when Newcastle Eagles visit.

Wolves will look to overturn a seven-point BBL Trophy semi-final first-leg deficit for the right to progress to the final in Glasgow later this month.

The spell concludes at another challenger for honours, London Lions, next Tuesday.

Head coach Paul James said: “That’s a tough series of games but the sort of competition I like. We begin with a vital game against Sheffield with us close to each other in the table.

“We’ll push hard against them and only after that will we turn our focus to Valentine’s Day versus Newcastle and of course travelling to London after that.

“We sold out at home against Newcastle a few weeks back and it was the big crowd that kept us going.

“It makes such a difference to our team to have everyone’s support behind us.

“Hopefully, there’ll be another couple of big turn-outs on Friday and Sunday and hopefully we’ll do something special for them in return.”

Wolves maintained third place in the BBL after a battling 79-74 win at basement boys Manchester Giants.

Ex-Wolves guard Callum Jones levelled at 70-70 before Ashton Khan sprinted to the other hoop, drawing a foul, for a bonus three-point play.

An acrobatic Khan basket a moment later was enough for Wolves to draw clear.

James said: “It was a dogfight. You can’t rest on anyone in this league, whatever their position. Despite some difficult spells of play, we showed a lot of character to find a way to get the win.”

Jay Couisnard led the scorers with 21 points, followed by Perris Blackwell (19).

“We had a few players off their game but Perris and Jay stepped up. Ashton had a bitty game but came through at the end,” added James.