By JARROD POTTER
CASEY Cavaliers women claimed their second win of the season with a comprehensive 19-point win over Chelsea.
Outgunned and vastly inexperienced compared to the Cavaliers, the Gulls fought valiantly to stay in the match, but couldn’t compete with the Casey contingent.
Casey well and truly dominated off the glass, snaring 56 rebounds to 45, with 19 coming from star centre Leah Swain.
The only downside from a comfortable victory is the Casey shooting percentage – hitting only 19/77 from the field and 23/39 from the foul line in what could’ve been a much bigger thrashing.
Played well across the board,” Casey coach Mark Holman said.
“Shooting probably let us down about the margin and a more comfortable lead to finish off the game.
“We did a great job of pressing defence up the floor – half court defensively we were good at stopping their offence.”
Swain (14 points, 19 rebounds) led the Cavaliers on the stat-sheet with Amy Mcfarlane (15 points) returning to her point post after a week off, while Alex Keates (nine points, 10 rebounds) almost reached a double-double and Naomi Roussety (five points, six rebounds) impressed the coach from limited minutes.
With new weapon Keira Beswick suiting up for the first time in Cavaliers’ colours on Saturday night, Casey will put Coburg to the limit to avenge their 2012 Big V Division 2 Women’s grand final loss.
“Very much looking forward to it – been a bit of a bogey team for us – beaten us, but not by much and looking forward to having a crack at them,” Holman said.
Following their Saturday night match, in possibly the strangest piece of Big V fixturing ever created, the Cavaliers have to travel to Warrnambool to face the Mermaids on Sunday afternoon at noon.
This correlates to around a 15-hour break between matches, three-and-a-half of those spent driving through the night across Victoria.
Casey moves into fourth with a 2-1 record, trailing Southern Peninsula, Werribee and Melbourne University.
