Pioneers’ attention now turns to play offs

Men’s & women’s team well & truly in the hunt for NBL1 South glory

The OneFortyOne Mount Gambier Pioneers kept themselves in the running for second position on the NBL1 ladder with a Saturyda night road victory over the higher ranked Waverley Falcons 77-7. It left the final standings to be decided in the final minor round clash of the season on the Sunday (no result available at press time).

Coming into the game at Waverley Basketball Stadium the Falcons were sitting second at 16-4 and the Pioneers third at 15-5. Waverley could lock away second spot with the win and the home team did start well to lead by as much as eight points in the first quarter, and then still by four at quarter time.

That lead for the Falcons got out to as much as 12 points in the second stanza as well until the Pioneers went on a 9-0 scoring run to work back into the contest, and then even head into the half-time break leading 41-40.

Mount Gambier took charge for much of the second half but the Falcons were still close enough to strike and were briefly back in front with eight minutes to play following a bucket to Maddi Utti.

Cassandra Brown responded with a three-pointer for Mount Gambier and they would never surrender the lead again going on to score the important six-point win. Miela Goodchil (pictured above right) delivered a terrific performance in the win for Mount Gambier finishing with 25 points and nine rebounds including going 10/10 at the free-throw line.

Brown added 14 points, five rebounds, five assists and four steals, Haliegh Reinoehl (pictured below left) 11 points, five boards and three assists, Zitina Aokuso 11 points and four rebounds, and Sherrie Calleia 10 points.

The Castec Rural Supplies Mount Gambier Pioneers men strengthened their hopes of a top two finish and denied the chance of the Waverley Falcons to climb the ladder with heir 83-78 road victory. Both teams had two games this weekend to close the regular season with the Pioneers a chance to move up into second position and the Falcons till a chance of finishing as high as fifth.

Mount Gambier made the fast start to lead by as much as nine points early in the game but Waverley was able to turn that around to lead by five points at quarter-time.

The swings continued right through the rest of the game with the Pioneers ending up leading 42-38 by half-time before the Falcons got back on top by four points during the third term.

However, Mount Gambier was back in charge again in the fourth quarter to open up an 11-point lead before going on to secure the five-point victory.

Titus Robinson ended up topscoring for Mount Gambier in the win with 19 points and five rebounds on 8/12 shooting from the floor. Nick Marshall (pictured above left) contributed 12 points, six rebounds and five assists, Austin Shelley (pictured left) 12 points and four boards, Jacob Lampkin 12 points, nine rebounds and three assists, and Tom Kubank 12 points and four boards.