The Sureway Wollongong Roller Hawks will be hoping their first loss of the season will be the reset and rev up they need to charge into the NWBL Finals and defend their back-to-back crowns.

 

The Roller Hawks suffered their first loss of the season on Friday night against the Queensland Spinning Bullets in Brisbane, going down 59-71. The Bullets were aggressive from the start, employing a full court press to disrupt the Roller Hawks and force 24 turnovers.

 

The defensive pressure gave the Bullets an extra 20 shot attempts with Tom O’Neill-Thorne (25 points, 9 rebounds, 12 assists) and Lachlin Dalton (14 points on 7/7 shooting) taking full advantage. 

“Their press was very good and that resulted in us having a lot of turnovers and forced shots late in the shot clock.” said Luke Pople.

 

“We addressed a few things going into Saturday’s game that we thought would help us beat the press, things like crossing, communicating and it did.”

 

The Roller Hawks made the necessary adjustments for Saturday’s game, shooting out to a 21-10 lead at quarter time and never looking back, winning 80-53. The Roller Hawks were able to break down the Spinning Bullets’ full court press and run their pick ‘n’ roll offence resulting in 54 points underneath the basket compared to 32 the night before.

 

“Getting over half way was one of the biggest things, once we got over, we were confident enough that we could get a good shot and we found ourselves getting layups so that worked out well.” 

 

It set the stage for an epic third game on Sunday with the teams separated by a single point going into the final quarter. But the Roller Hawks held their nerve and finished with a 25-13 final term to win 83-70. 

 

Luke Pople led the Roller Hawks averaging 21.7 points, 9.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists while captain Brett Stibners finished with averages of 19 points, 10 rebounds and 7.3 assists across three games. Shawn Russell averaged a double double for weekend (17 points, 10.7 rebounds per game).

 

The round will serve as a reminder for the Roller Hawks that winning a third consecutive national championship won’t be easy when the team returns to Brisbane for the finals in three weeks. In addition to the tough play from the Bullets, the Perth Wheelcats consolidated second place with strong wins over third placed Kilsyth, setting up a mouth watering battle on the first night of the Finals that will see Wollongong and Perth play off to advance directly to the Grand Final.   

 

“It’s always a good game against Perth, we have a couple of weeks now to prepare ourselves for their weapons and we will be raring to go come finals time.”

 

With the top three places now settled, all eyes will be on the Queensland vs Sydney match up in the final round of the season (10th-11th August) with Sydney needing to win both games to sneak into the finals. 

 

ROLLER HAWKS ROUND 8 RESULTS

Friday July 26: SPINNING BULLETS 71 def ROLLER HAWKS 59

Saturday July 27: ROLLER HAWKS 80 def SPINNING BULLETS 53

Sunday July 28: ROLLER HAWKS 83 def SPINNING BULLETS 70