Sunday, 23rd August, 2009

The WheelKings have almost certainly ended Dandenong's chances of reaching the finals with a 76-55 win today at Minto Sports Centre.

You can read more on that in the Round 7 Ladder article but here's a wrap of today's match.

Firstly, a huge thanks goes to Anne Thorn, Steve Wisbey, Arthur Papadam and all the team from Macarthur Disability Service for putting on a great day. Our NWBL game was the feature event of their gala fundraiser for Careflight and a very good crowd was in attendance for the contest.

In yesterday's game, Dandenong scored freely in the opening term as they continually broke Wenty's 3-man full court press. It was a different story today as coach Hewson pulled his troops back to the 3-point line on defence. The Rangers struggled to score but the WheelKings were having their own problems putting the ball in the hole at the other end. Jon Pollock was the only player hitting his shots as Wenty went 2 from 8 in the opening minutes. Wenty eventually pulled away by 7 points before allowing Dandenong back in with 2 baskets in the last 30 seconds of the quarter. WheelKings were up 17-13 but shooting poorly at 37%. However, their strong defence was causing all sorts of problems for the Rangers who were shooting just 30%.

Just 4 minutes into the second quarter, Wenty had pulled away by 12 points after some good shooting from Bill Latham and Craig Cannane. But again Dandenong wouldn't go away as they clawed back into the contest behind the scoring prowess of Brooke Quinn and Shaun Groenewegan. Half-time arrived none to soon for Wenty as they were just managing to hold onto the lead, 33-29.

In a repeat of yesterday's game and last Thursday's game against the Razorbacks, the third quarter was money time for the WheelKings. Dandenong got to within 2 early in the period but it was all Wenty after that as they established a match-winning 54-40 advantage. The final quarter saw coach Hewson go to his bench as he gave all 12 players a run. They kept pushing the score and maintaining defensive intensity to take the win by 21 points.

The WheelKings lifted their shooting accuracy to 42% by the end of the game and it was a good hitout for Wenty as they try to fine-tune their offence heading into the finals in 3 weeks. Jon Pollock led all scorers with 20 points and he was supported by Bill Latham with 16 and Jon Simon with 12. The last game of the regular season will be against 2nd placed Wollongong at 5pm next Saturday at Shellharbour Stadium, and it will be a huge test of the WheelKings championship aspirations.

Full stats info available at http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/17/00/95/61/89ns7rZZ2xEcw/