By Liam Twomey
SEMI-FINAL matches in the Big V basketball competition got underway on Saturday as Altona travelled to Warrnambool for the first leg of its finals series.
The result did not go as planned for the Gators women’s division one team who went down to Warrnambool by 10 points.
The upset is a shakeup as to how the finals were meant to play out. Altona finished the regular season on top of the ladder and Warrnambool only just scraped into the fourth spot.
They now find themselves one game down in a best-of-three series.
The regular season seemed to matter little though when the match got under way with nothing able to split the teams for the first half.
The Gators took a one-point lead into the main break and many would have expected them to run away with the game from there.
However, Warrnambool played some outstanding basketball in the third term to restrict Altona to just eight points and grab a matchingwinning lead.
The final score was 73-63.
Stacey Barr was outstanding for the Gators scoring 39 points in a dominating performance.
Despite the loss, Altona are still in the box seat to progress to the grand final with backtoback home matches against Warrnambool this week.
