NBL1 East Recap | Sunday Round 8

The Albury-Wodonga Bandits scored two dominant Sunday NBL1 East road wins over the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders to close Round 8 while the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence women beat the Central Coast Crusaders.

Round 8 in the NBL1 East wrapped up on Sunday with the women's match ups that saw the Centre of Excellence beat the Central Coast Crusaders 76-64 and the Albury-Wodonga Bandits defeat the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders 97-38.

The men's match up then saw the Bandits beat the Spiders 95-64.

NBL1 EAST RECAP | SATURDAY ROUND 8

WOMEN

Centre of Excellence keep on winning over Central Coast

The Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence team made it a double win weekend beating the Central Coast Crusaders 76-64 on Sunday afternoon.

The rising stars from the Centre of Excellence beat the Maitland Mustangs on Saturday night before backing up against the Crusaders on the road on Sunday against an opponent trying to respond to a defeat the previous night to the Sydney Comets.

The CoE team started well to lead by three at quarter-time but it remained a close contest and by half-time the scores were all square at 31-apiece.

It was the third quarter where the young guns from the Basketball Australia team coached by Dave Herbert took over the contest. They piled on 28 points to 11 in the third quarter and that set up the eventual 12-point victory.

The Centre of Excellence improved to 8-1 on the season with the victory while Central Coast is now 4-7 and having lost five in-a-row.

It was just a seven player rotation largely used for the game for coach Herbert too but he got plenty of strong contributions including a double-double from Isla Juffermans with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

Sienna Harvey added 18 points, three rebounds, three steals and two assists, Jayda Clark 18 points, three boards, two assists and two steals, and Monique Bobongie 10 points, 12 rebounds and four steals.

Jasmine Forcadilla fought valiantly for the Crusaders to end up with 25 points, five rebounds and two assists with Darneka Rowe contributing 19 points and seven boards, and Nicole Hutchins nine points and six rebounds.

Albury-Wodonga hand Hornsby another big loss

The defending champion Albury-Wodonga Bandits inflicted some more pain on the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders with a 97-38 victory on Sunday afternoon.

Hornsby were back home at The Brickpit on the back of their smallest losing margin of 20 points the previous night against the Penrith Panthers, but Albury-Wodonga weren’t going to give them any relief on Sunday.

The Bandits were coming off a loss themselves against the league-leading Manly Warringah Sea Eagles the previous night and they hit back emphatically against the hapless Spiders.

Albury-Wodonga put up 29 points to nine already in the opening quarter to set the tone for the afternoon. The Bandits added another 23 points to 13 in the second quarter, 21 to eight in the third and 24 to eight in the fourth to end up winning by 59.

The victory improves Albury-Wodonga to a 6-4 record on the season with Hornsby slipping to 0-10 in a challenging first NBL1 East season.

Emma Mahady had a first-class performance in the win for Albury-Wodonga with 26 points, six rebounds and five assists while shooting 10/15 from the floor and 6/10 from three-point range.

Ashlee Hannan added 22 points and eight rebounds, Liz Murphy 15 points, eight boards, five assists and four steals, Jade Crook 11 points and 13 rebounds, and Brodie-Paige Theodore seven points, 10 assists, five rebounds and two steals.

Cara Bishop top-scored for Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai with 10 points on 5/6 shooting in 15 minutes while Mizuki Wakamatsu finished with five points, 10 rebounds, two assists and two steals. 

How crafty is Emma Mahady! ??

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MEN

Bandits give Spiders heavy loss after three nail-biting ones

The Albury-Wodonga Bandits made it a double win weekend in the NBL1 East by keeping Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai winless with the 95-64 victory.

While Hornsby came into the game still chasing their first win in the NBL1 East, they had been heartbreakingly close in their past three games to be banging down the door.

That included one-point losses to the Canberra Gunners and Bankstown Bruins, and then on Saturday night it was a two-point defeat to the Penrith Panthers where two missed free-throws at the death cost them the chance to force overtime.

On the back of those three heartbreaking losses, the Spiders struggled at home on Sunday with Albury-Wodonga proving too strong from the outset with 27 points to seven in the opening period.

The Bandits went on with the job from there with 32 points to 14 in the second term and despite Hornsby outscoring them in the second half, Albury-Wodonga still cruised to the 31-point win to improve to 5-5 on the season.

Jamir Coleman led the charge for Albury-Wodonga with 27 points, eight rebounds and three assists on 10/12 shooting from the floor, 2/2 from downtown and 5/5 at the foul line.

Dylan Wilkie added 12 points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals, Eric Miraflores 13 points, five rebounds and four assists, Michael Parks 11 points, four boards and two assists, and Jacob Cincurak 11 points, nine rebounds and three assists.

Shareef Saipaia finished with 23 points, four rebounds and four assists for the Spiders, Patrick Fraser 11 points and four steals, and Ben White seven points, two rebounds and a block.