Hornets sting sharks

As reported in the Hills Shire Times, March 23, 2010

Hills Hornets U14M vs Sutherland Sharks at Sutherland

March 21, 2010

Win 67-32

Last week, against Penrith we had a size advantage inside. That advantage evaporated against Sutherland who had two very big men down low.

Adding to that we were missing one of our own bigs, Addam, who was out with an ankle injury.

We started slowly letting the Sharks score the first five points before Arran scored off a fast break. Then Mitchell got open just inside the three point line and dropped a deep two on the Sharks. Another offensive rebound led to an easy bucket and then we set up a play for Jay who beat his man off the dribble collapsing the defence before kicking out a beautiful pass to Thomas who dropped in an ice cold two.

After that, the first quarter became a dogfight, and although on the wrong side of a 7-1 foul count, great passes inside by Jayden and Mark to our big men gave us some easy points. That said, our help defence was a bit off early and we let in a couple of easy baskets when we missed some back door cuts. Despite this we finished the first quarter ahead 14-12.

In most of our games this year, the Hornets have broken out in the third quarter. We didn't wait that long this time. Changing up the defence we started to put pressure on the ball all the way down the court, picking up a rash of steals that led to easy buckets.

This pressure defence also prevented Sutherland from driving and getting fouls that constantly saw them at the free throw line in the first quarter - at least until the last three minutes of the quarter when we hit the limit.

We came out of that quarter down on the foul count again but well up on the scoreboard 38-19.

That lead was well and truly consolidated in the third quarter, thanks to more steals in Sutherland's half and some great top of the key defence by Luke and Mitch.

As we continued our dominance with some tough play, Will made a great assist down low after rushing in for a rebound and later Brane used his body well to score inside as we accelerated away to a 67-32 victory.

Next week we take on the Comets at Alexandria.