Week 1 Women's SBL Semi Final Friday night wrap

THE Willetton Tigers have dominated the defending champion Rockingham Flames in Game 1 of the Women's SBL semi finals at Mike Barnett Sports Complex romping to the 23-point victory to now have a chance of book a Grand Final berth on their home floor.

The two teams met in last year's Grand Final and have appeared on a collision course right throughout 2016. Having ended up in second and third position respectively, and winning their quarter finals, the rematch of last year's decider was set for the semi finals.

It was the Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers who dominated the defending champions from start to finish on Friday night getting on top in every area of the game to end up beating the Orange Autos Rockingham Flames 82-59.

Game 2 will now take place next Friday night at Willetton Basketball Stadium and the Tigers can advance straight to the Grand Final with a win while a win for the Flames would force the decider back at Mike Barnett Sports Complex on Saturday night.

The other Women's semi-final series will get underway on Saturday night when the Joondalup Wolves host Game 1 against the Perry Lakes Hawks at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

Given the quality of both teams, it would have been no surprise to see either side come out on top on Friday night but nobody could have predicted just how dominant the Tigers could be against a Flames team who has won the last two championships, and added WNBL star Ifunanya Ibekwe.

Rockingham had not lost a single playoff game since Game 3 of the 2013 semi finals against the eventual champion Wolves, but that changed emphatically on Friday night.

The Tigers just came out switched on, with more energy and outhustled the Flames from the outset.

Willetton opened up an eight-point lead by quarter-time and that grew to 16 just before half-time with Rockingham only getting back within seven at the break through consecutive threes to Ashlee Sidebottom.

Any hope that the Flames had of that turning the momentum was quickly flushed away in the third quarter as the Tigers took back control and never looked like surrendering the advantage scoring 45 second half points to 29 to win by 23 points.

Only twice during the season did the Flames score fewer than 59 points in losses to Joondalup and Willetton when Darcee Garbin and Ifunanya Ibekwe were missing in both, and Sami Whitcomb was too against the Tigers.

The 23-point margin is also Rockingham's biggest aside from that opening week loss to Willetton since a 51-point hammering by the Tigers way back on June 22, 2013.

Willetton's pressure and intensity all over the court was outstanding, in particular the defence of Louella Tomlinson on Garbin, and both Ebony Antonio and Lara Napier on Whitcomb.

The Tigers ended up with 49 rebounds to 38, scored 40 points in the paint to 24 and forced the Flames into 15 turnovers scoring points off those.

Willetton also shot well at 35-of-75 from the floor at 46 per cent while Rockingham struggled with 21-of-72 at 29 per cent from the field and 7-of-25 at 28 per cent from beyond the arc.

Kate Malpass was clearly motivated to make a statement for the Tigers and she was outstanding delivering 28 points, five rebounds and five assists to lead her team admirably.

It was the depth of contributors that shone for Willetton with Desiree Kelley finishing with 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals, Tomlinson 12 points, 10 boards, four assists and three blocks, Antonio 10 points and nine rebounds, and Zoe Harper eight points and 10 boards.

Then off the bench Napier also added six points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals for the Tigers and Emma Lobb six points.

Ibekwe ended up top-scoring for the Flames with 19 points, 12 rebounds and three assists while Whitcomb was put under enormous pressure every time she had ball in hand, but still had 15 points and six assists on shooting 5-of-16 from the field.

Garbin added 10 points and nine rebounds for Rockingham and Sidebottom 10 points.

Willetton coach Simon Parker always had confidence that his team with their game plan would stack up well against the Flames, and he couldn’t have been more proud to see it all come together.

"We know that team-wise we probably go deeper than what those guys do and it was just about staying with our game plan. Our thing was to work hard for 40 minutes on both offence and defence, but especially defence," Parker said.

"A lot of our offensive layups and stuff came from our defence so we were happy with it in the end. I could sense they were ready to go pretty early.

"We were out by nine or 10 in the first quarter, and then in the second quarter we got it out to 14, 15, 16 and the only two times they got back was when Sidebottom hit two threes and that was from us not working hard.

"The key was to make sure we kept scoring and we couldn’t afford to keep chucking up bad shots, and for them to keep scoring and getting back into the game. It went the other way for us and we kept taking good shots and making them."

Flames coach Ryan Petrik had been confident the defending champions could turn it on come playoff time, but what he saw on Friday night means he has a lot of work to do to get things back on track next Friday night.

"We definitely never got going. We have kind of been a team in cruise control and then we flick a switch and we go, and we warned the girls that at some point you are going to try and flick the switch and not go," Petrik said.

"That's exactly what happened. We got outworked badly, we got outcoached, outplayed and just got beaten everywhere. I honestly can't point at one thing we actually controlled. The reality is I don’t think we can play any worse. But we got smashed for effort."

Petrik was making no excuses for the performance by the Flames and was especially left bewildered at their lack of effort at the defensive end.

"I feel like we were outcoached and outworked. We thought we had a pretty good idea of what they were going to do, and they were pretty close to it, but we just couldn’t get out of it. It was like we were running in quicksand," Petrik said.

"They've always been a really good defensive team but their defence was elite and our offence was poor, but then we let that affect the other end. That can't happen.

"You can have bad offensive nights, that happens to everyone, but we just decided because we weren’t making shots we wouldn’t play defence either. That's a down one game to nil in the series mentality now."

WOMEN'S SBL SEMI FINAL GAME 1

Orange Autos Rockingham Flames 59 lost to Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers 82

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday




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