By Justin Schwarze
In a local rival clash, the Casey Cavaliers Youth League Women got the bragging rights over Pakenham at Cardinia Life on Saturday.
The Cavaliers entered the contest through an up and down season, but bought in defensively to hold the hosts to just 25 percent shooting from the field and 23 turnovers.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of games, we worked really hard to win by 23, just a bit of inconsistency,” Casey coach Michael Davies said.
“Overall, when we lock in and play great D, we’re really good and we keep teams in the 50s in their scoring.
“That’s something that I want to try and pride our team on, which is our defence, our hustle and our work ethic.”
The Cavaliers led by 15 at the main break and didn’t allow the Warriors back within reach of the game, finshing at 74-51.
Kendra Rivet and Katelyn Field both scored 16 each, leading the visitors on the offensive end.
“Katelyn and Kendra shot extremely well from three against Pakenham, between them they made eight threes so that was a big part of pushing that game out,” Davies said.
“Kendra’s stepped into a great role this season, getting more minutes and she’s rewarding us for that, she’s taken a good step forward.
“Katelyn has been an energy gauge for us, she always comes with a bit of hype to push us.”
Following the win, Casey headed home to prepare for its game against Bulleen the next day, which resulted in a narrow one-point loss.
The Cavaliers shot poorly from three, with just 7/27 shooting from deep and they turned the ball over 22 times.
“It was a little bit disappointing for the standards we want to try and set ourselves,” Davies said of the loss.
“Bulleen just worked harder than us and executed better.
“It would’ve been nice to think that would could have been 4-3 or even 5-2 but we let one or two games slip, but we’re going to do the hard work at the backend of the season and keep trying to build so we’ll see where we end up.
“There have been lots of individual highlights of giving opportunities to girls coming out of juniors or step up from last year so I think that’s the big positive for this season and you can see the growth and development.”
