By JARROD POTTER
ONE down, one to go.
That’s the philosophy among the Casey Cavaliers women’s basketball team this week following their impressive come-from-behind 72-61 victory over the Southern Peninsula Sharks.
The Sharks got the jump on the Cavaliers in the first term, but three crucial field goals to Jade Foot kept the Cavaliers in the hunt early.
Southern Peninsula pushed out to a 17-10 lead at the first break before the Casey crew got the gears turning.
A 22-29 deficit back to the Sharks’ advantage with minutes remaining in the second term turned into a 32-31 lead at the main break, with Renae Mokrzycki, Sam Johnson and Lara Pauline hitting crucial points down the stretch.
Casey coach Mark Holman stuck to his guns.
He could’ve clamped down player-to-player on Sharks’ star duo Jasmine Lovejoy and Lee Wilkins with his best defenders, but held strong with the high-rotation strategy that got the Cavaliers to the finals in the first place.
The elastic band stretched back-and-forth in the third term, as an iffy charging call against Amy Mcfarlane created a four-point turnaround for the Sharks to take the lead back.
The revival started with a pair of blocks from Mokrzycki – taking the ball back and dishing off to Mcfarlane, who fed Jade Foot for a crucial three-pointer.
Following a two fouls in a minute for Mokrzycki, getting to four for the match, the Cavaliers went to Alex Keates, who sunk 3/4 free throws off a foul and technical foul late in the term – and Jess Szalek as both caused havoc for the undersized Sharks.
The guard pair Mcfarlane and Johnson also got to the net to push Casey back to positive ground heading into the last term.
The Sharks couldn’t contain Keates – who awesomely struck 8/10 free-throws in a 10-point, eight rebound performance.
Little by little the Sharks started to lose their bite – missing their lay-ups and fouling any Cavalier that moved.
Holman brought Mokrzycki back on with six minutes to reform the Triple Towers with Szalek and Keates. The result? Mokrzycki to Szalek – three points. Then Amy Mcfarlane hits two frees and a steal leads to Keates finding Szalek for three more. The Sharks’ endeavour broke in that moment, as Mokrzycki, hit a jumper then laid in two more with a free throw cherry on top.
Two more for the Mokbuster, followed by another five for Szalek, off a lay-up and three frees in a minute, gave the Cavaliers the hard-fought 11-point victory.
Guiding his side through a stellar July – knocking off contenders and belting the pretenders – Big V Division 2 women’s coach of the month Mark Holman was thrilled to take the points despite his girls having to fight their way back into it.
“That’s alright as long as we’re ahead at the final siren we’re happy with that,” Holman said.
“We’re 1-0 up but we’ve also beaten them the last two times we played them and there are things there we didn’t do right and get the win, so there’s a lot of confidence we can take going into it.”
While he had a full-roster of praise to dish out, Holman thought Pauline and Keates excelled under pressure on the night.
Game two of the series takes place on Saturday night at Hillview Stadium, Rosebud at 7.30pm. If a third game is needed, it will be played at Rosebud on Sunday at 2pm.
