Harbour Breeze finish fourth at WBC
A very young Harbour Breeze finished a creditable fourth at the 2018 Women’s Basketball Championship Finals in Dunedin last week after going down 75-53 to an Auckland Dream team full of veterans in the play-off for third and fourth place.
The Breeze opened the game with an 8-0 run but their fortunes steadily declined from that point. Tayla Dalton (12 points) led the Breeze scoring but the Breeze scorers were well contained by the Dream defence.
Earlier in the championship the Breeze had booked a semi-final spot by emerging from section play with two wins and a loss.
An extremely close first up loss to Waikato Wizards (90-83) was followed by victories against a strong Power Chill Waikato Country Cannons and Taranaki Thunder.
Led by a 33 points haul from Akiene-Tera Reed, the Breeze built on a 35-27 half time lead to beat the Cannons 84-72. Penina Davidson had a double-double of 12 points and an impressive 15 boards.
Tera (27 points) also led the scoring in the 72-56 win against Taranaki. She received good support from Penina (19/14) with Keeley Tini and Tayla chipping in with nine points apiece.
Penina was absolutely immense in the semi-final compiling a stats line of 23 points, 17 rebounds and 6 assists. Tera (17 points ), Keeley (12 points) and Anna Lacey (10 points) made strong contributions. The Breeze closed to within three points in the final quarter but couldn’t stop eventual champions Otago Gold Rush progressing to the Grand Final with an 84-71 victory.
In the Championship game Gold Rush claimed the title with a closely fought 62-52 victory against Waikato Wizards.
Penina was selected to the WBC All-Star Five alongside Charlisse Leger-Walker (Waikato Wizards), Natalie Taylor (Auckland Dream), Nicole Ruske and Dana Goularte (both Otago Gold Rush).
A number of the Breeze players will begin international duty in the coming days. Tayla heads to Belarus alongside Jazz Kailahi-Fulu and the rest of the NZ team for the Fiba U17 Women’s World Cup. Penina and Tera will join the Tall Ferns for their tour of Japan and Taiwan - the squad also includes Brooke Blair, now based in Australia.
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