Miniscule Margins
After a near 7 month wait, the opening round of the 2008 Central ABL season produced a plethora of close margins, providing a great lead-in to a smorgasbord of hoops in April.
And South Australia’s AIS graduates showed the benefits of having spent the last 2 years living, eating and breathing basketball.
North and Norwood provided two nail biters at Mars. In the women’s game, Norwood led for most of the game, and it took some clutch free throws from Jenah Piwanski with 10 seconds to go, and some tough denial defence on Nicole Romeo in the last play, to seal a 1 point victory.
In the men’s grand final rematch, Nick Hambour left the game with four fouls in the first quarter, but Erik Burdon kept the Rockets in the game with a 20 point period. Some sweet shooting from player-of-the-week Keith Krause allowed the Flames to create a 10 point margin by ¾ time, but North quickly eroded this, and Jason Reardon had a 3 pointer in the last play to win the game. The shot missed and Norwood held on to win by 2.
At Port Adelaide Nikki Martin, whose last 6 months has included a World Junior Chamionships, a WNBL season, and a gold medal with the SA Under 20 Women’s team, hit a three in the closing minutes to seal a 5 point victory against title-favourites Sturt. Lightning captain Sam Woosnam was also dominant in this game in her debut as player-coach for the Bearcats.
In the South-Southern men’s derby, South trailed for all but 2 minutes of the game, including by as much as 18 in the 2nd quarter, but made a huge run in the 2nd half, and a Justin Halleran 3 with 20 seconds remaining tied the game. Joel Goodenough went to the foul line with 4 seconds to go and iced both free throws, and a Tom McKenzie 3 on the buzzer just missed, leaving Southern as 2 point victors.
Erin Phillips also provided some highlights in Central Districts return to the Central ABL, as did Eastern’s fellow Opals squad member Cayla Francis.
With most teams playing 6 games in the next 3 weeks, April Madness will most definitely be a “survival of the fittest”.
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