Venom turns deadly

By Ben Hope
A DETERMINED Warrandyte Venom team put an end to the Cranbourne Cavaliers’ winning streak with an 88-41 defeat on Saturday night.
Cavaliers coach Cory Smith said his team struggled to get ahead at the Warrandyte Sports Complex after finishing the first quarter only one point behind.
“We thought we were pretty evenly matched before the game, but we could tell during warm-up that some of our boys weren’t ready to play,” Smith said.
“Warrandyte had lost three in a row and had obviously set some team goals and winning that game must have been one of them.
“They had a rev-up at half-time and came out pretty strong, we couldn’t keep up.”
From the second quarter Warrandyte powered ahead with 23 points to 11 leaving the score 40-27 at half-time.
There was worse to come for the visitors with a 21-1 third-quarter trouncing that all but lost the game for the Cavaliers.
Smith said the young players seemed to forget they needed to put in the work to get a win in the Big V competition.
“Once we were down by 15 points we sort of disappeared from the game,” he said.
“There was no talking, it was frustrating. Maybe we got a bit ahead of ourselves after two wins in a row and thought things would just happen and we didn’t have to work so hard.
“We were nowhere near the level we have been.”
In the final quarter Warrandyte further extended its lead scoring another 27 points and pushing its total to 88. Despite a rally of sorts in the final quarter Cranbourne could muster only 14 points to finish on 41.
During the last quarter, as defeat seemed inevitable, Smith sent in his less experienced players to give them some on-court time.
“Both teams sent in their bench players for the last quarter to give them some court time, there wasn’t much we could do and both teams knew it,” Smith said.
“A couple of guys from the bench, like Jayden Mcmillin and Matthew Marshall, tried pretty hard but when no-one else was it didn’t make much of a difference. We weren’t playing as a team.”
The loss moves the Cavaliers out of the top four teams on the ladder and into fifth place behind Warrandyte.
“A loss like that certainly doesn’t help our percentage, which is pretty low as it is. We have to refocus and start winning some games again,” Smith said.
Next week the Cavaliers will face Melton in a home game. The last time the teams met in the third round Melton won by 38 points.
“We will be looking for a better first half this time. We are playing in Cranbourne so we are hoping for a big home crowd,” Smith said.