THE Cockburn Cougars and Joondalup Wolves were the top two Men's SBL teams right throughout the season and now both are just one win away from the Grand Final for 2016 after Game 1 semi-final victories on Saturday night.

Both Game 1 semi-final matches took place on Saturday night with the Lapa Brazilian BBQ Restaurant Cockburn Cougars defeating the S&K Electrical Geraldton Buccaneers 100-96 at Active West Stadium.

That means that the Buccs now need to win Saturday night's Game 2 against the Cougars at Wally Hagan Stadium to force a decider on Sunday.

The defending champion Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves also defeated the Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers 122-103 at Joondalup Basketball Stadium.

That result means that the Tigers must win Game 2 at Willetton Basketball Stadium on Friday to force a Game 3 back at Joondalup on Saturday night.

Starting at Active West Stadium, the Cougars were able to shake off the absence of captain Gavin Field and having come off a gruelling quarter-final series against the Perry Lakes Hawks to score a tremendous four-point win in front of a loud and vocal Geraldton crowd.

The Cougars started strongly against the Buccaneers leading by six points at quarter-time, eight at half-time and still by 12 at three quarter-time, but the Buccs were never going to lie down without making a charge.

And Geraldton managed to get all the way back to tying scores up at 96-apiece with a minute remaining. The Buccs had all the momentum and their home crowd behind them but the Cougars found a way to steady things in the last minute.

It started with a couple of free-throws to Marcus Goode before Matthew Adekponya missed a three-point attempt for the Buccs, Rhett Della hit two free-throws and then Carter Cook and Jackson Hussey also missed threes as Cockburn held on to win 100-96.

Little separated the two teams with the Buccs shooting 44 per cent from the field and 31 per cent from three, and the Cougars 40 per from the floor and 35 per cent from downtown. The Buccaneers collected four more rebounds but also 17 turnovers to 12 with the Cougars scoring 17 points off those.

In the absence of Field, Rhett Della became the man for the Cougars and finished with 28 points and eight rebounds shooting 10-of-16 from the field and a perfect 8-of-8 from the charity stripe.

Najee Lane also finished with 21 points and nine rebounds for Cockburn and Marcus Goode 20 points, 11 boards, three assists and two blocked shots.

Sheldon McIntyre started for the Cougars and had nine points and four rebounds while Dan Thomas contributed eight points and four assists, and Julian Pesava six points and eight rebounds.

Maurice Barrow had a strong game for the Buccaneers ending the night with 28 points and 10 rebounds shooting 11-of-16 from the field.

Matthew Adekponya added 23 points and 10 boards as well for the Buccs while Carter Cook finished with 17 points and five rebounds, Jackson Hussey 11 points, six boards and four assists, Aaron Ralph 10 points and eight rebounds, and Mat Wundenberg six points and six boards.

Then at Joondalup Basketball Stadium, the Wolves and Tigers delivered a tremendous contest for four quarters with the intensity going up a notch and the quality of the game certainly befitting a semi-final match up.

While Damien Scott had a monstrous first half with 27 points for the Tigers and three triples in the third quarter from Charles Funches kept Willetton within touch of Joondalup, every time they did get close the Wolves were able to steady and pull away again.

That proved to be the pattern of the night and during the fourth quarter the Wolves were able to pull away from the Tigers once too often and there would be no comeback this time with the home team and defending champions going on to win by 19 points.

It is a 28th straight victory at home for the Wolves having not lost at Joondalup Basketball Stadium since April last year and now they are just one win away from making a second straight Grand Final.

It was on the glass where the major difference panned out between the teams with the Wolves pulling in 52 rebounds to just 29 from the Tigers. Joondalup big men Kevin Davis (15), Rob Huntington (10) and Damian Matacz (6) had more boards than Willetton as a team.

Davis also had 23 points to go with his efforts on the boards on 6-of-7 shooting from the floor and 11-of-15 from the free-throw line while Huntington scored 15 points and Matacz eight.

Reece Maxwell had a tremendous performance for the Wolfpack with 12 first quarter points and 23 for the night to go with seven rebounds and three assists. Trian Iliadis was his usual self hitting 27 points to go with five assists, four boards and three steals nailing three of his six threes.

Captain Seb Salinas also had a strong showing with 19 points, six assists, four rebounds, four steals and two blocked shots while nailing 5-of-8 from three-point range.

Wolves coach Ben Ettridge was happy to see a host of his players stand up for valuable contributions and he credits their defence for 48 minutes as the key to the win.

"The boys played well and prepared well, and we are as fit and healthy as we are going to be, and guys keep stepping up. Reece Maxwell was phenomenal, Seb didn’t have the State Schoolboys to be away for and delivered a great game and everyone stepped up," Ettridge said.

"We've said all along that we have to defend for 48 minutes. They are as good an offensive output team that there is going around and they've put up some big scores, and Damien Scott, Kyle Armour and Jay Bowie are as good a three guys that there is in this league.

"Credit to Stephen and his team, they came out and punched us in the mouth and gave us a good run for our money, but my guys withstood that and managed to crack them right at the end after a great game of basketball."

The Tigers might have lost but there was plenty to be impressed about in their performance despite the deficiency in the rebound count.

On the back of his outstanding first half, Damien Scott finished with 33 points and three assists for Willetton shooting 12-of-19 from the field, 4-of-7 from long range and 5-of-8 from the foul line.

Captain Kyle Armour added 19 points, four rebounds and four assists as well for the Tigers while Jay Bowie contributed 16 points.

Charles Funches had a purple patch in the third quarter nailing three triples on his way to 17 points and four assists, but just two rebounds.

Andrew Black added seven points, five rebounds and three assists, and Josh Johnson five points, eight boards and four assists but he was hindered by foul trouble all night. Nic Cody battled a sore back to play just 16 minutes for six points and three rebounds.

Tigers coach Stephen Black was happy with a lot of what his team did despite the loss and feels if they can fix up a couple of areas, particularly on the boards, that they can bounce back on Friday.

"I thought it was a really high quality game and we played well, and they played well. I think in the end they wore us down a bit but there was a lot of positives we can take away from that and hopefully put into place back at our place on Friday," Black said.

"If we can manage to just attack and things bounce our way then we probably played well enough in the first half offensively to have a bit of a lead, but we just didn’t quite do the job on the boards that we needed to do.

"If we can do a better job there then we give ourselves a chance to really get something done on Friday."

MEN'S SBL SEMI FINAL GAME 1 MATCHES
S&K Electrical Geraldton Buccaneers 96 lost to Lapa Brazilian BBQ Restaurant Cockburn Cougars 100
Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves 122 defeated Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers 103

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday