Nathon Jones faces a tough assignment as the new coach of the Eastern Maverick’s women.

The team suffered a major loss of players in the off season, mainly due to retirements, but the transfer of star player and 2010 Halls Medallist, Tess Madgen to Sturt hurting the most. Jones was forced into running a squad of mainly talented juniors who proved no match for the finals hardened Bearcats who have a number of players with WNBL experience.

Jones opted for a starting five of Madison Bycroft, Jessica Hayward, Jo Robbertsen, Chloe Henderson and Katherine Brown. The team was seriously undermanned against the height of West, with centre, Kerrin Webber scoring the first basket inside the keyway for the visitors. It was all one way traffic as the Bearcats went on a 15 point run before Candice Hartman broke the drought by scoring from the foul line.

Late in the quarter the young Lady Mavs settled with baskets to Madison Bycroft, Katherine Brown, Caitlin Sampson and Hartman adding some respectability to the score as the Bearcats were outscored in the final minutes against the trend of play.

In the opening minute of the second quarter, the Mavs’ Katherine Brown scored but that was the only basket for the home side for the period as the visitors rattled on 37 points for the term. West’s Meg McLeod with 11 points was the leading scorer, she went on to score 17 points for the game but was outscored by Adelaide Lightning player and team member Nikita-Lee Martin who finished the game high scorer with 24 points.

West maintained their dominance in the third, although the Mavs scored the opening two baskets through Brown and Jessica Hayward. By the end of the quarter Eastern were trailing by the margin of 73 points 97-24.

The final quarter was purely academic as West handed Eastern its biggest losing margin of 81 points since the club joined the competition. The only shining light in the last stanza was Chloe Henderson’s 8 points in the final 2 minutes of play.

Courtesy of David Tonks, Eastern