Power playoff hopes evaporate
PORT City Power’s men’s QBL playoff pipedream evaporated over the weekend with losses to Cairns (68-61) and Townsville (90-74), but they were just one bounce of the ball away from adding another chapter to their season story.
With 15 seconds left on the clock against Cairns, the sharpshooting Nathan Calder found an open three-point shot to put the game into overtime but couldn’t make it count at the death.
Cairns added another four points from the line with the Power forced to foul out but coach Blair Smith couldn’t fault the effort of his spirited charges on Friday night.
“The effort the guys put in was awesome and with 15 seconds to go we were right there which is our best result in Cairns by far.”
“If we can play with the intensity we showed this week I’m pretty confident we can get Cairns at home this week.”
In a real defensive grind, neither side shot the ball well with Gladstone at 41.8% from the field and Cairns a lowly 39.3% as neither side broke 25 points in any one quarter.
James Cripe again stood tall for the Power with 23 points and 10 rebounds with support from Keith Borgan (10 pts) and Josh Gill (11 pts).
Skipper Dale Iwanicki went down with an ankle injury in the fourth and is likely to be constrained to courtside for some time.
The Power backed up against Townsville as huge underdogs on Saturday with a man down, but came out firing to be level with the second placed Heat 40-40 at half time.
The Heat opened up a 14 point lead at three-quarter time to take the game away, but again Smith was pleased with the performance given the quality of opposition.
“Backing up against Townsville who are stacked with NBL players I probably didn’t expect to win, but to be tied up at half-time was great and we never gave up the whole game,” he said.
“Every single player got on the court and contributed really well and I was proud of the way we kept going as hard as we could.”
Keith Borgan continued his point scoring form with 25 while Nathan Calder chipped in with 12 including three from five three pointers.
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