Men's Preliminary Final Review - West Adelaide v Norwood
By Dale Fletcher
A sizzling shooting display from West Adelaide forward Chris Molitor has propelled the Bearcats into the 2010 men’s Central ABL grand final with a 87-79 victory over the Norwood Flames at Port Adelaide last Saturday night.
Molitor and his Bearcat teammates started on fire, bursting out to an early double-digit lead and had a 23-10 quarter time advantage.
Norwood then showed their championship qualities and never say die attitude as they slowly fought their way back into the contest and by the main interval had cut the West lead to just 37-31.
The second half was tense, tight and everything you would wish for in a final as both teams went basket for basket and big play for big play. Something had to give, and West struck.
After holding a slender 48-44 lead with three minutes left in the third quarter, Molitor stuck two massive three-pointers and added another basket while Brad Davidson landed a triple also to give West a 59-50 lead going into the final stanza.
Once again, the Flames lifted a gear and with their dreams of a three-peat slowly diminishing started the final period in ruthless fashion. When guard Andrew Webber connected on his fourth three pointer of the night, Norwood took the lead 66-65 with a tick under six minutes remaining.
West responded almost straight away with a 9-1 tear lead by Davidson and when Kurtis Phillips hit his third triple of the game, the Bearcats were back out to 74-67 with three minutes left.
Norwood again responded with a three-point play from David Cooper cutting the West lead to 76-72 before Davidson’s biggest shot as a Bearcat swished for three for 79-72 with a minute left on the clock.
Clutch free throw shooting from Davidson in the final moments kept the Bearcats’ advantage as they again foiled another almighty Norwood surge.
For West, Molitor led the way with a game high 26 points at 77 per cent with seven rebounds while Davidson added 22 points and a game high nine rebounds.
Webber and Cooper never stopped trying for Norwood and both finished with 21 points.
The victory takes West back to the grand final for the first time since 2001, when they also were matched up against Sturt Sabres.
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