The Journo
Years ago
Bearcats Buried By Stunning Sabres
Horrifying opening quarters have stalled West Adelaide's march to the Central ABL playoffs with both Bearcat sides succumbing to Sturt at Pasadena Sports Centre last Saturday night.
Matching up against a Sabre outfit, which embarrassed West 130-79 at Port Adelaide on the opening night of the season, West looked scared at the imposing 17-5 opening burst Sturt poured on before anyone could take a breath.
West found an unusual first quarter savour in Paul Bell, who didn't tear up the paint, rather connecting on three consecutive thee-pointers to keep the Bearcats a float, down 38-28 after the first period.
Sturt continued to hold West at bay, the Bearcats not troubling the deficit below 10 points and when Adelaide 36er Oscar Forman connected on his 19th first half point, West went into the half time break down 69-51 and in need of Houdini.
Whatever was said in the Bearcats shed at the break worked a treat in the third period. West found an answer for Forman in the way of Ben Evans, who kept the game breaker scoreless in the second half.
A more even scoring spread at the offensive end made the Sabres start to respect and guess which Bearcat would pop up to finish off, even still trailing 88-74 with a quarter left, all the momentum was with West.
When the red and black scored the first seven on the last period, Pasadena started to murmur, could Houdini provide a miracle, West got back to 98-92 when a Daniel Phillips three pointer rimmed out and Darren Ng took over the game with 14 last quarter points, all the air went out of the West cause, Sturt running out 107-96 winners.
Captain Bell top scored with 24 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Evans was fantastic with 23 points, Phillips had 20 points and Blake Truslove added 18 but poor free throw shooting left West thinking what might have been.
West women too had to fight back from a first quarter double digit deficit (19-9) and took a two point lead midway through the second quarter.
Sturt regained control and their ten-point lead just before half time and kept their advantage throughout the second half despite countless Bearcat foiled comebacks, West going down 71-60.
Leah Mencel was tough for West with 16 points and three steals, Kamala Lamshed added 12 points while Kerrin Truslove (10 points, eight rebounds) fought hard in the keyway against Adelaide Lightning's Monique Bowley.
The season gets tougher this weekend, West are at home against a rampant Forestville who are the teams to beat in the competition, an interesting match up and one that could go either way.
