15 Jul NWBL Round 4 Wrap
The Perth Wheelcats have bounced back from their losses to Darwin, taking two wins on the home court of the Wollongong Roller Hawks.
The two sides fought out three hotly contested games with the Roller Hawks taking a 68-59 win in game one with Shawn Russell leading his side with 36 points and 14 rebounds.
Despite the 9-point margin, there was little separating the two teams as the rebound count (41-41) and turnovers (8-8) finished dead even. Three pointers to Tristan Knowles and Luke Pople and a handful of free throws were the only difference.
It remained close on Saturday night with the game going into overtime after the Roller Hawks came from five down at three quarter time. With 1:30 to play in regulation and scores tied at 67-67, both sides went basket for basket without a miss down the stretch. Frank Pinder tied the game at 71-all with 0:35 remaining as the Roller Hawks called time out.
The Roller Hawks ran their play, Shawn Russell got his shot off with 10 seconds on the clock with the ball rattling around and eventually dropping. A time out saw Perth advance the ball and Shaun Norris rolled to the low post and attracted the attention of the defenders and found an open Jake Kavanagh in the middle of the paint who tied the game with a second remaining.
A lob in from Knowles to Russell who was in a similar position to the previous offence couldn’t get the shot to drop a second time and the two sides went to overtime.
The five minutes of extra time belonged to the Wheelcats’ Tom McHugh though; the high pointer didn’t miss, scoring 12 of Perth’s 14 points to give his side an 87-83 win.
“I think it was a bit of a statement for us,” said McHugh. “I had a bit of revenge to dish out after the last finals we played in Darwin. I didn’t want to lose to these guys again. They’re such a talented bunch that if you give them any sort of a sniff, they’ll bury you.”
Wollongong looked set to take game three as they took a 6-point advantage into three quarter time. But a 19-9 final quarter by Perth stole it for the visitors to give their 2024 campaign a major boost.
“The talent across the top three teams at the moment is through the roof. It’s a bit of a roll of the dice on who comes out better prepared on the day and luckily, we were able to do that twice.”
Despite the weekend’s results, the Roller Hawks aren’t hitting the panic button yet.
“Couldn’t be prouder of the team,” said Roller Hawks coach Brendan Dowler. “Down a couple of players meant we couldn’t run the usual combinations we like to play.”
Wollongong remain on top of the ladder for now as they sit 9-3, after dropping a game to Darwin in Round 2.
“They’re the tough games that we’ve had. We’ve taken wins against both of those teams. We can take some confidence from that. We’ve also been beaten by both those teams, so we’ve got things to work on there as well.”
Manly were searching for their first of the season when they travelled to Shepparton to take on the Red Dust Heelers. Having had two tough rounds against Wollongong and Perth, a weekend against the fifth placed Heelers presented the Wheel Eagles with the best opportunity in their short history.
That assignment changed when team lists on Thursday revealed Red Dust’s new import, Italian Sabri Bedzeti. The new addition touched down in Melbourne the very next day but having spent more time at Tullamarine than with his teammates, the adjustment was going to be for Red Dust as much as the visiting Eagles.
The two sides were neck and neck in game one, with Lachie Dalton taking the lead for Red Dust with 21 points including 4/6 from three-point range while Manly were paced by their two high pointers Bill Latham (27 points, 17 rebounds) and Emmanuel Cervantes (26 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists).
Field goals to Latham and Cervantes pushed Manly past the 55-55 deadlock and to their inaugural win in the National Wheelchair Basketball League, 59-55.
In Game 2, Red Dust made the adjustment and kept the Wheel Eagles high pointers out of the paint in the first half and forced them to take shots they didn’t look comfortable taking. Red Dust held a 44-30 advantage into halftime but had no answer in the second half as Manly opted to roll with three bigs.
After sitting out the first half Jansens came in and made an immediate impact, sinking the first shot of the second half on his way to 23 points for the game. The Wheel Eagles chipped away at the Heelers’ lead and after narrowing the gap to 5 at three quarter time still found themselves trailing by 8 with less than four minutes to go.
Manly lifted, going on a 10-2 run to close out regulation with a Cervantes shot with 14 seconds on the clock forcing the game into extra time.
Matt McShane found the right time to get his first field goal of the night at the beginning of overtime but from there it was the Koen show, the wily veteran scoring Manly’s next 8 points to take the win 81-77.
Manly were too strong in game three, winning 79-51.
“Very relieved to get rid of the donut on the ladder,” said Jansens.
“Red Dust surprised us a bit with their Italian import who is a serious player. Very happy to come away with three wins and especially the overtime one last night was special.”
Despite the limited lead in time and jetlag, Bedzeti showed he’d be a force for the remainder of the season, grabbing 20 rebounds in his first game, and 28 points and 14 rebounds in game two.
“Sabri is a serious player. Amazing chair skills and very powerful. He was a bit underdone because he only arrived on Friday, but he will be very exciting to watch over the next few weeks,” said Jansens.
“Sabri is a weapon in his chair,” added Red Dust captain Ryan Morich. “He brings a lot of skill and experience, and his intensity on court is unparalleled so I’m stoked he’s with us.”
“Off the court, he’s a great bloke and has already fit in really well. With half the season still ahead, I’m just keen to see how he helps us improve and reach another level as a team.”
In Darwin, the Salties put the Spartans to the sword with three big wins starting on Friday afternoon with a 90-39 win.
Darwin raced to a 20-4 advantage in the first quarter and outscored the visitors by double digits in every quarter with Jaylen Brown leading the way 24 points and 12 rebounds.
Thanks to the hard work of low pointers Sam White and Jannik Blair, Darwin’s scorers filled up the scoresheet at a super-efficient 62%.
Darwin maintained the pressure on Saturday and raced to a 19-2 start within five minutes in Game 2 and once again remained highly efficient with ball in hand shooting 57% as Jontee Brown took the starring role with 28 points.
The Salties finished with an 84-49 victory and backed it up hours later in game three with a 69-43 win. The Salties are now on a seven-game winning streak and move into the top four with three games in hand compared to the three sides still ahead of them.
“Seven wins in a row is nice, but we’re still not where we feel we need to be just yet,” said CJ McCarthy-Grogan.
“We’re still not consistent enough as we still have lapses in certain parts of games, so we’ve just got to work on fixing that. The good thing about that is, they’re the one percenters so we know what we need to work on to improve as a team.”
Winning by an average margin of 37.3 points has provided a major boost to Darwin’s for and against in a league where finals positions could come down to points differential.
“That’s just the energy we need to bring every game. If we do what we focus on each game, then hopefully the results will work out for us, but the goal wasn’t to put on big scores, that’s just a credit to everyone bringing the right energy.”
The Spartans insist there’s plenty of positives to take out of the weekend.
“Yeah, always really hard to still be able to perform after a long-haul flight. The theme of our season has been to find ways to get better with focus on the process not the outcome,” said Spartan’s Eithen Leard.
“Darwin have got a very good squad, it’s amazing to see that the Aussie league is heading in the right direction with depth and home-grown talent on top of a few imports. Darwin is a tough outfit; their talented low pointers killed us.”
The Spartans will need to regroup ahead of Round 5 against Manly.
“We definitely made steps in the right direction running into the next round which is really important for us as a team to make sure we put our best foot forward to make finals.”
Round 5 sees the Spartans host Manly, the Red Dust Heelers host the Perth Wheelcats in Corio, Geelong and the Darwin Salties travel to Adelaide to take on the Thunder.