Panthers declawed by swarming hornets

In a, sometimes, tense game and with a vocal home crowd, the boys had to tough it out against an uneven foul count in the first half before solving the problem by not letting the Panthers cross halfway.

We started the game with an almost perfect execution of a play from practice. Arran set a low screen for Mark who cut to the top of the key to take a crisp pass from Jay and nail an open shot from the free throw line.

The next goal came from a full length of the court pass from Mitch to Arran who was right under the basket. Luke would duplicate this twice in the course of the game, picking up players deep in the key from the other end of the court.

A little later Jay made a slashing drive from the top of the key between two players to get a nice basket on a reverse lay-up. It was almost a game of copycat when in the same quarter Jayden made a terrific backdoor cut and finished with a reverse lay-up.

Penrith parents cheered on their team loudly and tried to wind up our boys when things didn't go our way but that didn't stop the Hornets from scoring at will.

The only thing keeping Penrith in the game was a succession of free throws. Eight of their 10 points in the first quarter were scored at the free throw line.

However by that time we had already scored 21 points with six different players contributing to the total.

The foul count in the second quarter continued to go Penrith's way but the Hornets were piling on the points and dominating the boards. Will in particular was a monster, leading all rebounders with 14 rebounds, six of those on the offensive end. Addam had five offensive rebounds and Mark had four but both only had seven in total each.

As the second quarter wore on there were two fabulous steals close to the basket from Mark and Thomas who ripped the ball out of players hands and stepped in to take an easy basket.

Then we changed up our defence and started to play the two man trap. For the first time in the game we got  Penrith into a penalty situation.

In the third quarter we turned up the intensity on the two man trap and stormed away again putting Penrith into the penalty a couple of minutes out from the end of the third quarter. The Penrith crowd were quickly silenced as the scoreline climbed to 75-21.

In the final quarter Brett worked some new offensive patterns and returned to a half court defence. The scoring slowed but we still came home with a convincing 92-32 win.

Unfortunately Luke injured his knee in the final quarter when he collided with another player after being take out of the defence by a Penrith screen. At this point in time, it is unclear how long the injury will keep him out of play.

We already had Brane out of the game through injury after he fractured his toe in a soccer match earlier in the week.

It will be an interesting week as we are likely to be down two players in our practice game against Gosford on Thursday and then in the rep game against the number two ranked Sharks team on Sunday.

How we travel in these two games will certainly indicate the depth of our team.


Personal Bests
Luke: Assists - 5.
Mark: Field goal percentage - 61.54% (8 from 13). Total points - 18. Game efficiency - 21.
Will: Total points - 18. Defensive rebounds - 8. Total rebounds - 14. Deflections - 2. Game efficiency - 23.
Mitchell: Equal personal bests in assists (7) and deflections (7)
Jayden: Steals - 5. Equal personal best in assists (3).
Arran: Free throw percentage - 80%
Addam: Assists - 5. Steals - 3. Blocks - 2. Equal personal best in points (10).

Team bests
Team shooting percentage: 56.72%
Total team assists: 27