The opponents started with the advantage of having two players on their bench whereas Corowa only had their starting five.
Corowa’s defense was strong throughout the first half as they continued to match the Vipers point for point. A timeout in the first half gave the boys a chance to rest and regroup. A burst of energy pushed them through to the end of the first half with only one basket separating the two sides on the score board.
The game became more physical in the second half as the Vipers continued to rotate their bench and bring fresh players back onto the court.
Miles, Finn and Jack were relentless in their defense, and all contributed to the score remaining close.
With 30 seconds left on the clock, the boys had managed to keep the score within 2 points for the entire second half.
As parents held their breath for the chance to see the boys level the game, it unfortunately wasn’t to be as the Vipers forced a foul and were able to wind down the clock to take the win 20-18.
A great effort by the local Corowa boys who gave it everything they had.
Under 14 Leopards
This week the Leopards matched up against the Wildcats. Last time they played, Corowa won by a point.
The boys started well building a 7-point lead early through some tough defence and some piercing offensive plays.
Charlie had the assignment on their best small player to keep him out of the game as much as possible and in early game was doing a good job of denying him access to the basket.
Logan had a tough matchup at centre against their centre who is also a prolific scoring option for the Wildcats and was more than holding his own against him.
The boys weren’t having their best of nights with a lot of drives and shots missed but they were holding their own.
Corowa subbed out Logan for a rest, and their centre got on top until a timeout was called.
Harry Logie was moved into centre and given instructions on what he needed to do. It was a different story in the centre battle after the timeout with Harry getting into the right spots, showing some good aggression at the ball and applying some heavy defensive pressure.
The half time lead to Corowa was 13 points and things were going well. Wildcats came out strong and whittled the lead down however the Leopards responded as a team with Josh Hunter getting involved in more plays and scoring some important baskets. Josh Kremmer’s shooting was off for the night, but he persisted and sunk a few baskets off some strong drives for the basket.
On the offensive side Logan and Will were cutting through them but not a lot of offensive players were going in due to defensive pressure on both sides.
The defensive pressure was heavy from both teams with the centre battle being the most physical and intense.
Final siren saw a 15-point win for Corowa.
Under 16s
With 5 players on school camp it was always going to be a challenge to field a team. Thanks to Mitchell Graham (U14 Jaguars) and Rylan Brown (U16 Kings) for stepping in and helping us field a team.
The Under 16s started slowly with the inform Thunder taking an early lead before they finally got on the board. From there it was a pitched battle between the teams with the lead fluctuating in the single digits and the Thunder seemingly having luck on their side as some shots they put up were interesting but scored them a bucket.
Half time it was the Thunder by 5 points, and the boys were in this up to our necks with no bench and a player that had just played a full game against a team of 7 players.
The message was simple, shut down the lanes on defense as they had a player cutting us up in the key and move it around more on offense.
In the 2nd half one of the opponments lucky shooters got on a roll and dropped a few 3 pointers against Corowa. His shooting action wasn’t great, but it was working for him. With defence focused on the key the perimeter shots going in, they were starting to hurt with the Thunder hitting 4 x 3 pointers in the 2nd half to Corowa’s 1 from Franklin.
The Thunder skipped away from the boys in the 2nd half before a time out was called to regroup. Unfortunately, with a frenetically paced game, the legs were heavy, and Corowa weren’t able to bridge the gap with the Thunder recording a 51-31 victory.
15°C