The Just Better Care Roller Hawks aren’t hitting the panic button despite dropping two games on the same weekend for the first time since 2018.
The Roller Hawks hosted the Perth Wheelcats in three closely fought contests at Shellharbour City Stadium with the home side emerging victorious in Game 1, 68-59 before losing games two and three.
Despite the 9 point margin, there was little separating the two teams as the rebound count (41-41) and turnovers (8-8) finished dead even. Three pointers to Tristan Knowles and Luke Pople and a handful of free throws were the only difference.
It remained close on Saturday night with the game going into overtime after the Roller Hawks came from five down at three quarter time. With 1:30 to play in regulation and scores tied at 67-67, both sides went basket for basket without a miss down the stretch. Frank Pinder tied the game at 71-all with 0:35 remaining as the Roller Hawks called time out.
The Roller Hawks ran their play, Shawn Russell got his shot off with 10 seconds on the clock with the ball rattling around and eventually dropping. A time out saw Perth advance the ball. Shaun Norris rolled to the low post and attracted the attention of the defenders and found an open Jake Kavanagh in the middle of the paint who tied the game with a second remaining.
A lob in from Knowles to Russell who was in a similar position to the previous offence couldn’t get the shot to drop a second time and the two sides went to overtime.
The five minutes of extra time belonged to the Wheelcats’ Tom McHugh. The high pointer didn’t miss, scoring 12 of Perth’s 14 points to give his side an 87-83 win.
“I think it was a bit of a statement for us,” said McHugh. “I had a bit of revenge to dish out after the last finals we played in Darwin. I didn’t want to lose to these guys again. They’re such a talented bunch that if you give them any sort of a sniff, they’ll bury you.”
Wollongong looked set to take game three as they held a 6 point advantage at three quarter time but a 19-9 final quarter by Perth stole it for the visitors 74-70, to give their 2024 campaign a major boost.
“It’s a bit of a roll of the dice on who comes out better prepared on the day and luckily we were able to do that twice,” said McHugh.
Despite the weekend’s results, the Roller Hawks aren’t hitting the panic button yet.
“Couldn’t be prouder of the team,” said Roller Hawks coach Brendan Dowler. “Down a couple of players meant we couldn’t run the usual combinations we like to play.”
“They’re the tough games that we’ve had. We’ve taken wins against both Perth and Darwin. We can take some confidence from that. We’ve also been beaten by both those teams so we’ve got things to work on there as well.”
Wollongong have a bye this week and will be back in action in Round 6 against the Red Dust Heelers at Shellharbour City Stadium on July 27th and Illawarra Sports Stadium on the 28th.