Eastern’s women suffered another comprehensive defeat, the Sabres storming away to claim a 72 point win 97 – 25 in a one sided encounter. The Sabres were led by Tess Madgen who played for the Mavericks last season. She racked up 16 first quarter points on her way to 32 points to finish the top scorer for the game. Madgen was virtually unstoppable and in the first half she compiled 22 points at the high conversion rate of 75% hitting 9 of 12 shots taken. Newly appointed Sturt coach Chris Lucas had the luxury of running all 12 players during the night with each player contributing on the score sheet.

Eastern travelled with only 8 players available when Chloe Henderson, the leading scorer from round 1 was injured at training during the week and ruled unfit to play. In the early minutes of the first quarter Eastern got off a number of shots but under the pressure of the Sabres’ defence, failed to connect. This appeared to unsettle the young Mavericks side and Sturt took full advantage racing to a 17 – 1 lead in the first six minutes of play. Eastern’s Candice Hartman then scored the only field goal for her team for the term, the other score coming from foul shots awarded to Eastern’s Jo Robbertsen after an unsportsmanlike foul was called on Sturt’s Caroline Burgess in the opening minutes of the game.

It then took until the final 26 seconds of the second quarter before Madison Bycroft scored the next basket which was the only basket of the term for the visitors. Sturt continued with their dominance of the game by scoring 22 points during the same period. By half time the deficit was 47 points, 52-5.

In the third and fourth terms Eastern did improve their scoring output but were only able to finish the game with 25 points.  With Sturt freely rotating its bench players they had their lowest score of any of the quarters finishing the last with 19 points.

In this match only Madison Bycroft and Jo Robbertsen played the last time the two sides met in Round 13, 2010. For the Sabres seven of their players participated in the Round 13 clash and since that time Sturt have been further strengthened with the inclusion of  Nicole Seekamp, Aneeka Smith and Madgen.

After the game, Women’s Coach Nathon Jones was disappointed with the result but looking forward to the return of Chloe Henderson from injury and the return of Alex Wilson who has been missing with State Under 18 National commitments. Also the inclusion of recruits Tracey Beatty from the Canberra Capitals and Abby Williams from South Adelaide will make a big difference to the side.

By David Tonks