9 December 2006
Jake Lloyd
photo by Marion McNeill (www.photoexcellence.com)
At halftime of the G.E.T. Sydney Uni Flames’ game against the Townsville Fire Saturday night, Flames coach Karen Dalton kept her team in the locker room the entire 10 minutes.
“I just think we had to address some things defencively,” Dalton said.
For the first six-plus minutes of the third quarter, her team didn’t seem to get the message, as Townsville grabbed its biggest lead of the game, but then the Flames defence made some plays which resulted in Sydney grabbing the lead and never looking back en route to a hard-fought 75-72 victory at the Sydney University Aquatic Centre.
With the win, Sydney improved to 10-3 while Townsville fell to 6-8. The Flames won the season series, 2-1.
After a back-and-fourth first half, which saw Townsville take a 37-35 lead into the locker room, the Fire scored on seven of eight possessions midway through the third period to grab their biggest lead of the game, 58-48, with just over a minute and a half left in the quarter.
That is when Sydney capitalised on some sloppy plays by the Fire. After a layup by Eva Afeaki and a 3-pointer by Natalie Porter cut the lead to five, Afeaki intercepted a poor pass for an easy layup and Trish Fallon picked up an errant pass at midcourt and made another layup to cut Townsville’s lead to 58-57. The Fire took a 59-57 advantage into the fourth quarter.
Sydney quickly snatched the lead for good on Porter’s second 3-pointer of the game (she finished 2-for-2). After a jumper by Renae Camino cut Sydney’s lead to 62-61, the Flames scored three straight baskets to take their biggest lead of the game, 68-61.
“I think it really came down to the end of the third quarter,” Townsville coach David Herbert said. “That’s where we lost the game. We should have held that lead, we should have executed better, particularly at the offencive end.
“They took us out of our offence as well and we made errors under pressure.”
The Fire had a few chances to tie the game at the end, but could muster just two points in the final two and a half minutes. Trailing 73-70, Kelly Wilson misfired on a wide-open 3-pointer, Camino missed a difficult off-balance shot and Sydney’s Alicia Poto came up with a key steal with just over a minute left.
Townsville’s Rohanee Cox made a fastbreak layup to cut Sydney’s lead to one with just over 30 seconds remaining. But Sydney got a key hustle play when Afeaki tipped a missed shot to Michelle Musselwhite, who was fouled with 3.9 seconds left.
Musselwhite converted both free throws and Townsville failed to get a shot off at the end.
“I think there were a lot of hustle plays [by us],” Dalton said of her team’s performance down the stretch.
photo by Marion McNeill (www.photoexcellence.com)
Porter led Sydney with 18 points and eight rebounds. Musselwhite scored 12 points, including six in the final period, and Afeaki and Fallon added 11 apiece. Mikaela Dombkins came off the bench to score nine, with seven of them coming in the first half.
Camino led four Townsville players in double figures with 18 points. Jennifer Crouse shot 6-for-9 from the field to net 15, Tania Heritage shot 4-for-5 for 13, and Cox, despite just 4-for-13 shooting, added 12.
The game was nothing like the teams’ last meeting, a 92-90 shootout win for Townsville at the same venue. It was physical from the start, with bodies flying everywhere.
“I’m not questioning their intensity tonight,” Dalton said of her team’s play. “I think sometimes we just [need] to play a little bit smarter.”
Both teams crashed the offencive boards, with Sydney ending up with 17 and Townsville grabbing 16. The Fire had 18 second-chance points to 15 for the Flames. Seven players had at least three rebounds for the Flames, who were outrebounded overall 45-43. Still, that was a vast improvement from the 92-90 Townsville win, when the Fire outrebounded the Flames 50-28.
“I suppose there was a lot more focus on the defencive end,” Herbert said of both teams’ play.
Neither team could separate itself from the other in the first half, as Townsville took the biggest lead, 24-18, after scoring the first six points of the second quarter. Neither team shot well in the half, with Townsville making 40.5 percent of their shots and Sydney just 36.8 percent.
Townsville finished the game 29-for-68 (42.6 percent) while Sydney was 29-for-75 (38.7 percent).
The contest didn’t have the purity of the teams’ last meeting, but that certainly didn’t matter to Dalton.
“Obviously it wasn’t our best performance, but we came up with a win, which is good,” Dalton said.
photo by Marion McNeill (www.photoexcellence.com)