Game On for Tigers & Buccs
The Tigers’ have earmarked Matt Wundenberg, Brian Connelly and Ben Pepper as players they must shut out to avenge last weekend’s 30-point thumping by the Sun City Plumbing Buccaneers.
Peter Cook, assistant coach for the Tigers, blamed a loss of discipline for the game-one defeat in the best-of-three series.
He said the team would need to clamp down on the Buccs “game winners” at Willetton Basketball Stadium.
“This is a do-or-die game, they’re [the Buccs] going to bring everything to the table,” he said.
“Pepper, Connelly and Wundenberg are some of the key players we can’t let get away, along with [Ryan] Zamroz.
“All those guys are big game winners.
“If you let two of them go hard for the night, especially like Connelly and Pepper did last time, it makes things very difficult.
“You have to watch them all, you can’t let them get away.”
The Buccs are one win away from the grand final, where they are expected to face 2009 semi-final foe and defending champions Lakeside Lightning.
Victory tomorrow would provide an ideal milestone gift for Pepper in his 100th Buccs appearance.
In Zamroz, the league’s top scorer (845 points), and guards Tom Witts and Daniel Thomas, Buccs coach Ray Evans’ has ample firepower to counteract the Tigers again.
Evans said although his players were brimming with confidence, they were not being naive about the test ahead. He said they had not forgotten their 104-80 round- 17 defeat to the Tigers.
“In the change rooms after the last game, the players were saying how the series was still open,” Evans said.
“We saw a few weeks ago what they can do to us when we let down our guard.”
“We have to match their intensity early, but we’re not going to blow them out of the water straight away.
“Hopefully, over the course of the game, we can wear them down.
Article by Thomas Davis (Geraldton Guardian)
Photo by Anni Fordham (Fordham Creative)
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