THE Joondalup Wolves made a remarkable start scoring 25 of the first 30 points in Game 1 of its semi-final match with the Perry Lakes Hawks on the way to a 30-point victory on Saturday night at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

The Women's semi finals began on Friday night with a similarly emphatic result with the Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers winning Game 1 over the Orange Autos Rockingham Flames 82-59 at Mike Barnett Sports Complex.

Week 1 Women's Semi Final Friday night wrap 

Then on Saturday night at Joondalup Basketball Stadium, the minor premier Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves made a real statement defeating the Perry Lakes Hawks 80-50.

Game 2 will now take place on Friday night at Bendat Basketball Centre with Perry Lakes needing to win to force a decider on Saturday night back at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

It didn’t take long for the Lady Wolfpack to stamp their authority over Game 1 as they raced to a 15-1 lead after seven minutes.

The Wolves went on to still lead 21-5 by quarter-time and then during the second period 25-5, 42-9 and 51-14 by half-time.

The game was over as a contest by then but to the Hawks' credit they worked hard to try and take something out of it to take into Game 2 and actually won the second half by seven points to cut Joondalup's final winning margin to 30.

The Wolfpack ended up shooting 28-of-70 at 40 per cent from the floor and 10-of-25 at 40 per cent also from three-point range while the Hawks went just 18-of-53 at 33 per cent from the field, and 4-of-19 at 21 per cent from deep.

The Wolves outrebounded the Hawks 41 to 31 while also forcing Perry Lakes into 26 turnovers which Joondalup scored 29 points off.

Shani Amos delivered a standout performance for the Wolves finishing with 24 points, six rebounds, six assists and five steals while nailing 6-of-10 from three-point range.

Klara Wischer added 21 points, seven rebounds, five steals and three assists for the Lady Wolfpack while Nikita-Lee Martin contributed 14 points, Amy Kidner 10 points, seven boards and four steals, and Ellyce Ironmonger four points and 12 rebounds.

Wolfpack coach Craig Friday couldn’t have been happier with the way Game 1 panned out and he saw signs during the week of how switched on his team was.

"We're pretty happy with that. I thought we adjusted well early to everything and the way the game was called, and the tempo of the game. We got things pretty right and we are very happy with it, but understand that it's only Game 1," Friday said.

"The girls were good during the week, we had a good week on the track even though we were a bit light on numbers on Tuesday night. We managed to get up and down a bit, and start to put some things in place for the weekend.

"Thursday night was a quality session and that gives you a bit of confidence because with a young group like we've got sometimes you can see a bit of tension. But the girls trained well and came out ready to play."

Antonia Edmondson ended up top-scoring for the Hawks with 19 points to go with four rebounds and two assists while Deanna Smith added 11 points and five boards, and Lauren Jeffers 10 points and five rebounds despite 10 turnovers.

Hawks coach CJ Jackson was understandably disappointed with the first half performance in particular but is looking forward to the chance for redemption back at home on Friday.

"The signs weren’t great early but I thought we did a lot of it to ourselves. I think because of the moment that we didn’t respond to it," Jackson said.

"The moment was we were in the semi finals for the first time in a long time, we're playing away and I just think we came out overawed instead of thinking we belonged. Once we play like we belong that's when we will play at our best.

"We have all the confidence in the world that we're still in it, but we just need to play Hawks brand of basketball. Our Hawks brand of basketball when we play it at our best is hard to beat so we just need to get back to what we do best.

"We didn’t play very good defence so our defence was sub-par and that led to a lot of their open shots. We didn’t take care of the ball but really defence wins championships so that's what we need to get back to."

WOMEN'S SBL SEMI FINAL GAME 1
Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves 80 defeated Perry Lakes Hawks 50

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Serene-Elise Photography