By Stuart Teather
WERRIBEE is through to the Division One women’s grand final after sweeping Warrandyte in two games in their semi-final series.
The Devils headed into the game on Saturday night with the 1-0 advantage after knocking off the Venom on their home court the previous week, and Werribee made no mistake at home, cruising to a 77-55 victory.
Werribee jumped out to a six-point lead at the first break but the Venom whittled it away in the second term, and trailed by a solitary point at the half.
But it was Werribee’s third term that made the difference, outscoring the Venom 23-9, shooting four of seven from beyond the three-point arc.
From there Warrandyte’s attack was silenced and the Devils extended their lead in the final term, eventually taking the 22-point win.
Captain and coach Sharon Grieve was again the star with 19 points including three triples, along with 11 rebounds to dominate the game as she has done all season. She had strong support from Steph Clark (14 points) and Stacey Barr (13 points, 13 rebounds), while for the Venom Janelle Lucas led all scorers with 22 points.
With the win the Devils secured a grand-final match-up against Sunbury, after the side won two close games against Hawthorn in their semi-final series.
Grieve said Sunbury matched up better against her side than Warrandyte, but still thought the Devils had the advantage.
“It’s a much different game, totally different to Warrandyte, they’re a bit bigger so they’ll match up with us a bit better than Warrandyte do,” she said.
“We’ve got them 3-1 in the season, but I still think we’ve got a bit more strength than them.”
Grieve pointed to the fact that four Devils scored in double figures on the weekend as a sign that Werribee’s major strength was its depth.
“That’ll help us against Sunbury, I think they’ve only got four or five players … our bench is a bit deeper than theirs.”
It is Werribee’s first grand final series and the coach said her charges were thrilled to be there, after falling just short in recent years.
Grieve put out a call for Werribee basketball fans to come and get behind the club as they pushed for the elusive premiership.
“We had a lot of the juniors come and support us, hopefully they’ll be back in the next couple of weeks,” she said.
“Sunbury is a small stadium, hopefully we can fill it with a few Werribee people as well.”
Sunbury will host the opening game of the series this weekend, with Werribee to host games two and three.
