By Stuart Teather
THERE were mixed results for the Werribee Devils basketball club on the weekend, with the Division One women’s team winning its first finals game, while the Division One men were knocked out.
The women’s team, playing a best-of-three semi-final series against Warrandyte, dominated the game as it has dominated all season, blitzing the Venom 74-49.
The Devils faced a fired-up Warrandyte home-crowd but both sides took their time to get into the game, with the scoreboard reading 2-2 halfway through the term.
But from there on in it was all Werribee, as the Devils outscored the home side 19-10 in the opening quarter and 21-8 in the second.
Werribee’s strength is in its tall players and it was an area Warrandyte was lacking, and the Devils punished them on the scoreboard.
Werribee’s playing coach Sharon Grieve led the way with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while outside scorer Stacey Barr was on song with 21 points.
Grieve said her side made the most of its height advantage.
“We’re much bigger than them, we have a lot of mis-matches so we try and work our offence around to accommodate that,” she said. “They only have two bigs and we can play five inside, so we can use that to our advantage.”
Louise Johnston was another Devil to impress, pulling down a game-high 13 rebounds – including seven offensive boards.
The women will look to wrap up their ticket to the grand final this Saturday when they host the Venom at Werribee Sports and Fitness Centre.
The women’s team is Werribee’s last remaining hope for finals glory after Mick Downie’s Division One men’s team crashed out to Hawthorn on Saturday night.
Playing in an elimination final, the Devils came out firing and grabbed a 17-point lead at the first break, and appeared to have Hawthorn’s measure.
But from there it all went wrong, with Hawthorn pegging the margin back to five at the half, then pushing on after the break to record a 96-87 win.
It was a disappointing end to the Devils’ season as the side carried plenty of momentum heading into the finals campaign.
Aaron Marsh (29 points, 18 rebounds) was again a star and Nathan Marsh (20, 13) and Andrew Olechnowicz (17 points) were impressive, but it was not enough to save the Devils’ season.
