THE Soprano Designs Cockburn Cougars returned to the winner's list last Friday night against the Perth Redbacks on the back of a monster performance from Katie Loberg and now she's looking forward to backing it up this Friday against the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

The Cougars suffered a disappointing loss to the East Perth Eagles two weeks ago, but then hit back last Friday to beat the Redbacks 79-73 at Wally Hagan Stadium to begin a run of five straight home games that continues this Friday against the Eastern Suns.

Loberg was the star in the win over the Redbacks last Friday night with a season-best 36 points and seven rebounds on the back of shooting 16-of-20 from the field.

She was pleased with the team's performance after a slow start against the Redbacks and now she's looking forward to the challenging of taking on the Eastern Suns this Friday night.

"We just came out a little bit flat and we knew that we had to kick it into gear, and play a little harder on defence and figure that stuff out. We all took each other's backs and said that we would do it, and obviously in the second half something lit up and it was good," Loberg told SBL Slam on 98five Sonshine FM.

"It's a big game coming up. We've been playing double-headers a lot so to be able to play just one game and have the rest of the weekend off to rest, get better and get in the gym a little bit is good. Now we can prepare for next week and it's going to be fun."

Cockburn's playing-coach Deanna Smith is also having a strong season both at the helm of her team and continuing to run them on the court, and put up some impressive numbers.

She hasn’t been overly happy with the way the Cougars have been starting games of late and hopes that soon improves, but overall she was pleased with last Friday's win over the Redbacks and in particular the performance of Loberg especially considering she had been sick all week.

"We had a pretty slow start and the Redbacks came out strong, and we were a little bit flat. I am a little bit concerned about our starts at the moment and that's going to be a focus again for us this week, but I'm very proud of how the girls showed some resilience, stuck with it and got ourselves back into it to end up with a solid win," Smith said.

"She was sick as a dog and in bed all week, and went home early from training during the week when we were just shooting. I'm pretty proud of what she did in this game and that showed a great deal of character. She hadn’t played here for two years before coming out to play with us this season, but she keeps getting better and better, and it was great to see how aggressive she was."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Mick Cronin