THE South West Slammers fought hard without imports Tre Nichols and Royal Crouch but came up 24 points short against the league-leading Cockburn Cougars on Friday with coach Michael Van Lit confident of a strong response on Saturday at home to the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

The Slammers took on the top of the table Cougars at Wally Hagan Stadium with Nichols out having had surgery during the week for his broken nose with fellow import Crouch still missing with a hamstring injury.

Despite Cockburn racing out to a 14-4 start, South West did well to make it a contest and still only trailed by 10 points at half-time to the league's best team.

Cougars big man Marcus Goode took over to start the third period and the game threatened to blow out, but the Slammers did well to continue to fight against the odds to limit the final deficit to 24 points.

Trying to find enough firepower to replace Nichols and Crouch who have combined to average 51.4 points, 17.2 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 3.0 steals a game this season was always going to be tough.

But Slammers coach Michael Van Lit was proud of the way his team fought against the tide with several players standing up to show exciting signs for the future.

That included Sharieff Nepe playing the best game of his career with 15 points and five rebounds on the back of shooting 5-of-11 from the field and 3-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc.

Point guard Teny Puot also played his best game of the season for the Slammers with 13 points, seven assists and five rebounds shooting 4-of-9 from the field, 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and 2-of-2 from the foul line.

Travis Durnin continued his strong development with another eight points and 10 rebounds.

Trent Worthington (12 points, six rebounds) and Clive Weeden (10 points, four boards) worked hard inside for the Slammers but Worthington didn’t get much luck with some calls against him when guarding Goode.

Captain Wade Hitchcock also had 11 points for the Slammers and Van Lit was happy with the fight shown from his team.

"I thought we did a good job in the second quarter and the back part of the third. We kept ourselves in the game for most of it, we just didn’t have enough firepower to get over the line," Van Lit said.

"That's definitely Sharieff's best game, Teny played really well, Clive keeps getting better off his injury from last season and we just have to keep growing and building from that."

Van Lit always knew trying to beat the league-leading Cougars wasn’t going to be easy minus Nichols and Crouch, and he won't have either against the Kalamunda Eastern Suns at home on Saturday night.

"It's tough but I thought the young guys showed a lot of character tonight to play against the top team and really be competitive with them," he said.

"Tre had surgery on Tuesday and he wants to play tomorrow, but I would say it will be most likely next week when he plays again. He's getting a mask sorted out. And Royal's another two weeks away with his hamstring."

Van Lit and the Slammers are looking forward to getting back home to host the bottom placed Eastern Suns on Saturday, but they can't afford to be taken lightly given their ability to put plenty points on the board in quick time.

"We've been competitive at home so we just have to make sure we play like we did again tonight and I think we can get the result we are after," Van Lit said.

"We have to do a good job of controlling the pressure. Last time they got us up there and really took us out of what we wanted to do. We have to go to what we want to do and maintain our game plan and we'll go to our strengths."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Sebpix Photography