The Sun City Plumbing Geraldton Buccaneers are in outright second spot on the SBL ladder after an electric 112-95 win over the ladder leading Rockingham Flames at Activewest Stadium on Saturday night.

The Buccs avenged their round one loss to Rockingham and now owe the tie-breaker with the Flames if the two teams are locked on the same amount of points at the end of the season.

Buccs high flier Bennie Lewis said it was important to gain the tie-breaker over the Flames.

“Course we want to be number one and have home court advantage through the playoffs, no one wants to travel four hours to play us,” he said.

“We needed this win, anytime the number one team on the ladder comes into your house you want to knock them off.

“This shakes up the ladder a bit now, we have the head-to-head on them now and it is going to be a tight race.”

Lewis said the Buccs, who have now won eight of their last nine matches, are not focussed on finishing in top spot on the ladder.

“We are just trying to win every game as they come, if we win more of these games and win more than we lose we will be near the top of the ladder,” he said.

Saturday night’s victory was set up by a blistering start.

Buccs led 21-8 in the first seven minutes of the game, before extending the lead to 24 points late in the opening term after Clayton Dann made two three pointers, a block and drew a charge call all within one minute.

The play was made more remarkable after he had played a full GNFL league game for Rovers two hours before tip off.

In the second term Lewis stole the ball and slammed it down before netting a transition three to give the Buccs a 61-36 lead before half-time.

Lewis, who finished with 19 points, said the Buccs’ quick starts were based on defensive effort.

“We always harp on knowing how many stops we get in a row, we were able to get four or five in a row and get out in transition,” he said.

“At the beginning of the game we talked about getting the ball inside to Odartey (Blankson) and any other miss matches we had.”

The closest the Flames got to the Buccs in the second half was 14 points.

Blankson was a big part of the reason, scoring a team-high 26 points.

Rockingham’s Cooper Land netted 32 points for the game, but Mat Wundenberg and Coarter Cook played him tough, restricting him to just nine field goals on 21 attempts.

Article by Taylor Courtland (Geraldton Guardian)
Photo by Mick Cronin