Coaches Report-Rd.13 vs Camberwell Dragon’s
On Saturday evening our Captain Matt Bartlett dusted himself off after some bruising collisions to hit 2 free throws with just 5.4 seconds remaining in the game to give us a crucial 92-90 victory over Keysborough in what can only be described as a very tense and emotion charged affair which carried over for some time after the final siren.
The next day saw us travel down to Geelong and require double overtime to hold of a fired up and fresh Supercats outfit 100-97. The effort to hang on when fatigue and foul trouble were major obstacles was full of merit and character building.
These 2 great results saw us jump into 4th position and equal on wins with Melton (9/6) for the time being, however we are well aware that there are no easy games this season and we will need to being fully focused and ready for Camberwell this week to remain in our current position whilst the Cougars desperately look to climb off the bottom of the ladder.
I was thrilled with the scoring spread last week across the 2 games with 4 guys in double figures on Saturday and 5 guys reaching that mark in Sunday’s game.
Whilst our leaders and senior players such as Matt Bartlett, Reggie Fuller, Josh McKay, John Woodcock & Matt Waight were all instrumental last weekend I was mostly impressed with the performance of our young rising star Bailey Michel who has really elevated his level of play in recent weeks since our vice captain Rob Sartori went in for knee surgery.
Bailey has been terrific at both ends of the floor but his ability to play huge minutes without turning the ball over as well as hitting the scoreboard in a variety of ways has been vital to our recent increase in offensive production as a team.
Finally I would also like to acknowledge and praise the support of our large home crowd last week. You guys certainly let the opposition know they were in enemy territory and definitely helped us late in the game by being fully engaged and very loud down the stretch.
Keep up the good work and please drag your family & friends along as we have some great contests coming up over the next few weeks and need every advantage we can get.
Go Gators.
Leigh Bathman
Head Coach.
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