received some much needed relief from her team mate
Brooke Blair. Two incidents in particular left Woodford in
a state of distress. One saw her bleeding from the mouth
with a moderate face laceration due to the targeted off
ball striking of Brooke Blair. More indicative of the team
defence was when Woodford took the ball to the hoop on
fast break and Blair again struck her so hard that she ended
up prone on the floor under the basket while a sickened
crowd struggled to look on. With Woodford weakened,
Thomas was able to take over the game on offence in the
last 5 minutes and put the Cyclones ahead by 4 points
with 40 seconds remaining. Brisbane had the opportunity
to cut the lead to 2 with 40 seconds remaining and stay
in the game but were unable to execute on the side line
out of bounds play. Rockhampton rebounded and scored
to put the game out of reach and take a 6 point lead.
Brisbane finished with 4 players in double figures; Dowdell,
Donders, Parker and Woodford, while Rockhampton saw
Thomas end up with 31 of their 69 points.
SBL Men v Sunshine Coast Phoenix by Michael Van Dongen
This week was the last round of the regular season for the
SBL Competition. The SBL Men were heading into this game
on a 3 game losing streak but were feeling confident behind
a good week at practice. We were taking on a team that
gave us our first loss 3 weeks ago, who was at full strength
due to Gold Coast having a QBL Home Game that night
and that mean their QBL Fr4inge players were available.
For us, we still had injury issues and Didan Toto was taken
away on the QBL Road Trip to Mackay and Rockhampton.
This was a great learning experience for Didan and
something the club is about getting players to develop
through SBL and push into the QBL Team. We welcomed
back Josh Leaney who has been out for 4 weeks and
Donovan Crowe out for 3 weeks
The game started off fairly even with Gold Coast having a
2 point advantage at the end of the first qtr. In the 2nd qtr
the game continued to change leads as both teams would
make runs at each other. We were unable to stop Gold
Coast attacking us through the middle and Harry Kerr was
torching us scoring all of his 18 points in the first half. We
were only down 49 to 50 at the end of the first half.
We made the adjustment to work harder not to allow
middle drives and this started to pay dividends not only
containing Kerr but we were able to get some offence of
our own behind Donovan Crowe – 8 points in 6 minutes
before going down with injury again.
We started find our range for the first time in a few weeks
with a lot of guys making shots from outside which was
pleasing sign. We ended up tied at 83 all at the end of
regulation and were now playing our 3rd overtime game
of the season. During overtime we started well and were
holding a 3 point lead until some poor decisions and ill-
advised shots allowed Gold Coast to fight back into the
game again and eventually beat us by 1 point 95 to 96
This again was another hard fought effort from the guys.
The best for us on the weekend were
Mutasim Eltima 21 points, Stefano Di Iorio 19 points, John
McConnell 16 points, Al Campbell 14 points, Josh Leaney 10
points
We now head into the Semi Final round of the semi-finals
after finishing in 2nd spot. With a 9 and 5 record which is a
little disappointing as we were 8 and 0 before the injuries
hit us. We do welcome back PG Kian Milburn for the finals
who has been in America at an exposure camp for college
scholarship offers
We are likely to face off against our cross town rivals the
Spartan’s on the 9th August at BBI, due to finishing in 2nd
spot we get a week off which could not have come at a
better time and allows the injured players an extra week to
recover for the semi-final. We would love to see as many
people at that game as possible, and it will be before our
Men’s QBL Team’s Quarter Final.
QBL Men Game v Southern Districts by Sean Connelly
Travelling to Central Queensland to play is always a tough
endeavour year in and year out. The north boasts four
consistently talented teams which are always a tough
opponent. This year was no different as we were tasked
to play both Mackay and Rockhampton in the span of two
days.
Our road trip begun early on Friday when we first made
our way to Mackay for a clash against the Meteors. The
Meteors had a strong back court of young and explosive
guard Verle Williams Jnr and talented veteran Chris Cedar.
They also boasted a solid import in Bryce Washington and
a combination of QBL veterans to round the team off.
On the other hand, due to travel limitations we could only
take 10 players out of our current 13. With Ben Volkman
and Ben Wilson both missing the weekend, the roster was
easily trimmed to 10, making it quite an easy decision.
On the bright side however, both of our NBL stars were
healthy and available along with import Aaron Anderson
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