Hawks Big Step Forward In Easy Win
It was an easy win against a team that the Noel Jones Ringwood Hawks were expected to handle comfortably at home on Saturday night, but the 25 point win was more about attitude than execution.
“The guys understand that still have a long way to go if we are going to have a chance to of getting to another Grand Final.” Hawks Coach Ken Harrington said.
“But tonight, we had the right attitude and played together. We took a rather large step forward which is encouraging.”
It was not all the Hawks way though, starting the game slowly. The Whittlesea Pacers caught fire and took advantage of some lackluster Hawks defense. Rebounding was an issue and the Hawks were making too many careless turnovers which was the main reason thy trailed by 4 at quarter time.
Harrington remained calm and called on his bench with Trevor Latham (15 points and 7 rebounds), Nathan Truman (11 points) and Max Sutton all bringing intensity to the game and in turn shutting down the Pacers offense. By half time it was Ringwood who enjoyed a six point lead.
After the long break, the Hawks starters finally started to impact the game with Mike McCahey (21 points), Jacob Gibson (17 points) and Shaun Clarke (17 points and 12 rebounds) all getting it going and quickly building a match winning lead. From this point on it was one way traffic with the Hawks extending the lead to over 30 before settling on a final 25 point margin.
“There was a better feel in the team tonight, we had fun and that was our focus.” Explained Hawks import Jacob Gibson.
“Even when we were not playing well, we showed more composure and that’s what our Coach has been preaching for the last few weeks.”
The win is the Hawks 7th in their nine games and has them sitting in equal first position with Knox and Eltham who also have 2 losses to this point in the season. Next week the Hawks have a bye but will return the following week with an important Double header weekend. They will travel to Hawthorn on the Saturday night then return home on the Sunday for a marquee match-up against the dangerous Casey Cavaliers.
RINGWOOD HAWKS 98 (McCahey 21, Gibson 17, Clarke 17, Latham 15, Fennell 12 ) defeated WHITTLESEA PACERS 73 at the Rings. Crowd 290
Watch a replay of the live stream for both the SCW Vs Diamond Valley and SCM Vs Whittlesea here:
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