(Loser Qualifying Final v Winner Elimination Final)
(Includes Round 9 & 18 results when the Teams last played)

Norwood v Forestville, Sat, August 7th, 7.30pm at Mars
R 9: Norwood 80 (Cooper 21, Grantham 16) def Forestville 71 (Blair 14, Luettgerodt 13)               
R 18: Forestville 85 (Luettgerodt 38, Sullivan 13) def Norwood 83 (Matthews 17, Krause 16)

In the Round 9 clash on 22nd of May only 9 points separated the sides at the end of the match. The margin stayed close throughout the contest with both teams finishing with an even spread of scorers. The Flames' David Cooper compiled a double - double of 21 points and 12 rebounds. Both teams finished with four players in double figures. Norwood created the winning margin in the third and fourth terms when they narrowly outscored the Eagles.

In the last minor round game Forestville broke away to lead at halftime 50-34. At the last break the margin was still at 15 points, 70-55 the Eagles looked set for victory. However, late in the last quarter, against the trend of play a Keith Krause basket for Norwood levelled the scores, 81-81. In the end it took a Riley Luettgerodt banker with just 2 seconds remaining to claim the victory for the Eagles.

In the qualifying final last week Norwood stayed in touch with the Sabres but couldn't produce enough baskets to take control and earn the win.  Norwood Coach, Rupert Sapwell was not available to coach that match. David Cooper covered his absence and still played but that appeared to impact on his output when he finished with just 3 points and 6 rebounds. This was well below his season average of 13 points and 13 rebounds per game.

In the elimination final Forestville did the damage in the last quarter when they outscored the Rockets 23-16 on their way to an 86-76 result. Luettgerodt finished the game high scorer with 30 points. Nick Blair in only 16 minutes of court time was also damaging finishing with 18 points and also pulling in 7 rebounds.  In an impressive statistic from the game the Eagles players were deadly from the free throw line hitting 13 of 15 taken at 87%.

These two sides met in the qualifying final in 2009 when Norwood was successful 92-81. This match was a highly physical rematch of the previous year's Grand Finalists. There is a long of history between the two sides. Forestville will be keen to eliminate Norwood from the Finals race to even up the ledger.

Norwood holds the advantage in height with David Cooper, Dan Thompson, Keith Krause and Sam Grantham all over 200 cms. For Forestville, Coach Andy Simons has been forced to run Scott Arnold, 186 cms and Doug MacDonald-Taylor, 193 cms against much taller opponents to curb their effectiveness. Both the Eagles players will have their work cut out in this encounter with the Flames having a number of combinations that it can run to take advantage of the height difference between the two sides.

The guards in Todd Matthews and Andrew Webber (Norwood) and Brad Sullivan and Brad Gerlach (Forestville) are evenly matched. Which ever pairing produces the numbers may go a long way to deciding the result.