PERRY Lakes Hawks coach Matt Parsons wanted greater effort from his team and he got that in a gritty win over the Perth Redbacks in the Men's SBL on Friday night while the Willetton Tigers also had to fight hard to beat the Rockingham Flames.

The two Men's SBL matches on Friday night to open Week 7 action saw the Perry Lakes Hawks bounce back and beat the Perth Redbacks 90-85 at Belmont Oasis while the Willetton Tigers overcame the Rockingham Flames 84-68 at Mike Barnett Sports Complex.

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Starting at Mike Barnett Sports Complex, the Flames faced a big challenge to end their three-game losing slide against the supremely talented Tigers.

That job got even tougher by quarter-time with Willetton opening a 13-point advantage. But Rockingham did well to turn the tide in the second quarter with 27 points to 18 to be just four points down at the break.

The Flames carried on that momentum into the third quarter and managed to lead 49-46 with 6:50 remaining in the term.

However, from that moment on the Tigers took over showing their championship credentials going on a 38-19 run for the rest of the game to end up winning by 16 points.

Ray Turner was especially dominant early for Willetton and still finished with a good night with 22 points and 15 rebounds in what was a fascinating battle with Flames import big Donovan Jack.

Jack also finished with 26 points and five rebounds for Rockingham.

Damien Scott contributed 17 points, four rebounds and four assists for the Tigers as well while Jay Bowie added 13 points and six boards, Kyle Armour 11 points and four assists, Hayden Noordhoek nine points and six rebounds, and Andrew Black eight points and five boards.

Jack was the only Flames player in double-figures scoring with Vinny Zollo finishing with eight points and eight rebounds, Justin Beard eight points and five boards, Beau Samuelson seven points and Ryan Godfrey seven points and five assists.

Then at Belmont Oasis, it was always going to be fascinating how the Hawks responded to their challenge from coach Parsons following last weekend's losses to the Geraldton Buccaneers and Stirling Senators.

He wasn’t happy with their efforts in both games but it was always going to be a challenge to bounce back on Friday night against a Redbacks team who had lost just once all season despite not having Lee Roberts, Michael Vigor and others.

After being outplayed on Monday night against Stirling by Ash Litterick, the challenge was in front of Hawks big man Brian Carlwell to deliver against the Redbacks and he was unstoppable in the first half up against Perth teenager Kyle Bowen.

Carlwell answered the challenge in remarkably dominant fashion with 13 points and five rebounds in the first quarter and 20 points and 10 boards in the opening half.

The Redbacks simply had nobody who could match his size and he was catching the ball low and grabbing rebounds at will, and putting the ball in the hole with little that Bowen, Shawn Redhage or anyone else at Perth could do because of the size differential.

Eventually the Redbacks had to double down on him and that opened up Matthew Adekponya to get going especially in the second half.

Despite that and with the players they were missing, the Redbacks just wouldn’t go away.

They even managed to hit the front during the fourth quarter and led 73-71 with six minutes to go.

But a big three-point play from Jackson Simkovic saw the Hawks regain the lead and despite a couple more scares late, they did hold on to it the rest of the way with one more and-one from Carlwell and a huge three from Adekponya, and then his block on Redhage in the dying seconds sealing the five-point win.

Carlwell finished the night with 28 points, 20 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots for the Hawks with Adekponya adding 26 points and six boards.

Rob Waters contributed eight points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals with Simkovic adding seven points off the bench.

Hawks coach Matt Parsons was disappointed to see his team lose last week largely based on the effort areas. It was a much different story in response on Friday night.

"Last week is behind us but if you have points during the season where you actually say to yourself that this is a point we don’t accept then we can always go back to reference that, so then going forward we can right a wrong before we get there," Parsons said.

"It's a good indicator of where we are trying to get to. The boys came out and they were challenged too, don’t worry. I even put my shoes on at training on Thursday and started running through blokes to give them a different look at something. They responded pretty well to that and they came prepared to play."

What Parsons wanted to see was a response from his group. Whether that resulted in a win or not wasn’t crucial, he wanted to see them play with heart and he certainly got that.

"We came into the game and the result wasn’t the important thing, it was about how we played it. What impressed me the most was that we played hard early and we got a little bit of a lead for the first time in a couple of weeks," Parsons said.

"It's always easier to hold onto a lead than it is to come back from one. We managed to do that and man, the boys just played hard.

"There is always going to be lapses, but they responded and I thought for 38 minutes we left everything out on the floor. We still had bad patches and they coincided with when they hit tough shots, but you can live with that."

The Redbacks battled hard against a desperate opponent to give themselves a real chance of improving to 7-1 if they had got over the line.

Ben Smith ended up top-scoring with 23 points and five rebounds with Redhage contributing 22 points and seven rebounds.

Jayden Stone delivered quite the cameo particularly with hitting huge fourth quarter shots to finish with 10 points and five rebounds while Geordie Murray added eight points and captain Joel Wagner eight to go with seven assists and four rebounds.

Week 7 continues Saturday night with five matches featuring the East Perth Eagles taking on the Lakeside Lightning, the Joondalup Wolves facing the Mandurah Magic, the Cockburn Cougars battling the Perth Redbacks, the Goldfields Giants hosting the Stirling Senators and the Geraldton Buccaneers playing the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

Then on Sunday afternoon, the Willetton Tigers play the South West Slammers.

FRIDAY NIGHT ROUND 7 MEN'S SBL RESULTS
Perth Redbacks 85 lost to Perry Lakes Hawks 90
Rockingham Flames 68 lost to Willetton Tigers 84

SATURDAY NIGHT ROUND 7 MEN'S SBL FIXTURES
East Perth Eagles v Lakeside Lightning – Morley Sport and Recreation Centre 8pm
Joondalup Wolves v Mandurah Magic – Joondalup Basketball Stadium 8pm
Cockburn Cougars v Perth Redbacks – Wally Hagan Stadium 8pm
Geraldton Buccaneers v Kalamunda Eastern Suns – Active West Stadium 8pm
Goldfields Giants v Stirling Senators – Neils Hansen Basketball Stadium 8pm

SATURDAY NIGHT ROUND 7 MEN'S SBL FIXTURES
Willetton Tigers v South West Slammers – Willetton Basketball Stadium 4pm

Photo by Vikki Hile