By ADEM SARICAOGLU
THE Keilor Thunder couldn’t quite match the might of Werribee on the road in Division Two Big V women’s basketball on Saturday.
The fifth-placed Thunder went into the clash underdogs against the 8-1 Devils, but came out firing in the opening term to lead by seven points at the first change.
However, by half-time that buffer was cut down to three, before Werribee kicked away in the second half to eventually score a 70-64 win.
Keilor coach Carey Paps remained buoyant about the result on Sunday, but admitted his side wasn’t as desperate as the second-placed Devils, who were on the rebound after suffering their first loss of the season a week earlier.
“We had a really great start and in the end I think they just wanted it a bit more than we did,” Paps said.
“But it was a tough game. The girls played well, it was just (Werribee) shot a little bit better than we did.”
Another area of concern for Paps was the total rebound count, which read 37-28 in Werribee’s favour.
“We were really down in our rebounding department – it was uncanny for us,” Paps said.
“We lost our captain (Kat Black) in the first six minutes so that didn’t help but we matched up really well (against Werribee).“It was just one of those things where I thought we got out-rebounded, which probably cost us the game.”
Paps highlighted the efforts of Jessica Francke (19 points, four rebounds), Jodi Impey (18 points, four rebounds) and Adriana Stankovic as his standouts for the night.
Ashleigh Gunn was also handy under the bucket, finishing the night with 11 points and four rebounds.
The Thunder now sits fifth on the Division Two table after 12 games that have yielded six wins. For now, Paps is keeping the focus simple ahead of three relatively winnable games against Chelsea, Coburg and Mornington.
“We’ve got to improve on defence and with ball movement on offence and we should be right, hopefully,” he said.“That’s basically what we’ve got to focus on.”
Meanwhile Keilor’s men continued their impressive run in Division Two at home on Saturday night with a dominant 104-79 win over the Maccabi Warriors.
The Thunder scored a whopping 40 points in the opening term to establish a 24-point lead at the first break, but that was pegged back to 18 by the half.
However the buffer proved insurmountable for the Warriors, with Keilor’s Matthew Jukes providing a stunning display that produced 24 points and six rebounds.
The Thunder remains second and will travel to Keysborough this Saturday night.
