In the opening game of the Australian Women’s National Basketball League season Penina Davidson and Akiene-Tera Reed both recorded double-doubles as the Melbourne Boomers have both Penina Davidson and Akiene-Tera Reed won a tight encounter at Adelaide Lightning 68-60 on Wednesday night.

Penina posted 12 points and 10 rebounds while Tera, making an impressive debut, filled the stats line with 10 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and a block. 

In an even more impressive performance on Saturday Melbourne beat cross-town rivals Southside Flyers 77-70 as Tera, with 18 points (6/11FG, 3/3 3PG, 3/4FT), led the Boomers scoring. Penina tallied 6 points and 5 rebounds in the win. 

The 2023-24 American collegiate season is almost upon us with the season officially beginning on November 6 – that’s November 7 on our side of the Pacific Ocean!

We have no fewer than 26 former Harbour reps playing in America and we will be doing our best to keep an eye on their progress in the coming months.

In pre-season games played last week Tayla Dalton posted 7 points, 6 assists and 3 steals as St Mary’s California beat Chico State 79-65 while Mackenzie Chatfield made 3 from 4 triples on her way to 11 points on her Western Kentucky University debut as the Lady Hoppers thumped Lane University 100-37.

Also on debut Tom Beattie scored 6 points as the University of Hawaii lost to St Mary’s, California 92-58. Fellow U19 National Championship winner Charlie Dalton had 7 points and 7 rebounds as Concordia Irvine went down 62-60 to Vanguard.

Back to our professional athletes:

Two steals pilfered by Tom Abercrombie in the BNZ Breakers victory against the Cairns Taipans on Friday night in Christchurch meant he overtook Dillon Boucher (288 steals) to become the Breakers all-time leader in that category. Probably worth noting that Boucher racked up his 288 steals in just 220 games compared with Abercrombie’s 289 in 405 appearances!

In the same game Sam Waardenburg and Sam Mennenga both scored 8 points for the Taipans. 

Sam scored a dozen points at South East Melbourne a couple of days later but again the result went against the Taipans as they slithered to a 91-78 loss.

In Perth the Wildcats snapped a four game losing streak to down the Adelaide 36ers 99-88, with Tai Webster contributing 8 points and 7 rebounds. Tai again had 8 points as Perth secured a 102-95 overtime win against Melbourne United on Monday night.

Up in Japan Isaac Fotu’s club Utsunomiya Brex split the double-header with San-en NP as both clubs won a game apiece. Isaac scored 15 points in an 89-73 loss and 8 points in a narrow 75-73 win.

For the second week running James Moors and Leeuwarden were within a single score of victory but fell 83-81 to Groningen in the Dutch League. James added 8 points to 10 rebounds in the contest.