NBL1 West Recap | Friday Men's Round 9

The Perry Lakes Hawks overcame the Lakeside Lightning in a fascinating Round 9 Friday night battle in the NBL1 West Men's Division while the Rockingham Flames and Mandurah Magic also scored impressive victories.

The Hawks sent another message of how strong they are shaping up to be this NBL1 West against the in-form Lightning while the big win from the Flames kept them near top spot and the Magic got ready for the arrival of last year's NBL runner-up MVP Scott Machado with the victory.

The three games on Friday night in the NBL1 West Men's Division saw the Perry Lakes Hawks defeat the Lakeside Lightning 97-81 at Bendat Basketball Centre.

Lewis Thomas put up 25 points and 10 rebounds for the Hawks with Jay Bowie delivering 22 points for the Lightning.

The Rockingham Flames then scored a commanding home win beating the East Perth Eagles 105-53 at Mike Barnett Sports Complex.

Callum Beard top-scored for Rockingham with 19 points and six rebounds while Andrej Donlagic put up 16 points and five rebounds for East Perth.

The Mandurah Magic then geared themselves up for the arrival of Machado with the 91-78 victory over the Cockburn Cougars at Wally Hagan Stadium.

Jerami Grace had an impressive performance for the Magic with 21 points, five rebounds and five steals while Nic Pozoglou put up 19 points and 11 rebounds for the Cougars.

Round 9 in the NBL1 West Men's Division continues with a massive Saturday night including the Geraldton Buccaneers and Goldfields Giants doing battle at Geraldton's Active West Stadium.

The Perth Redbacks will then play their first home game in a month with Joel Wagner becoming the new club's games record holder when they take on the Warwick Senators at Belmont Oasis.

The South West Slammers are back home to Eaton Recreation Centre as well to face the Perry Lakes Hawks while the Willetton Tigers are hosting the East Perth Eagles.

The Lakeside Lightning and Rockingham Flames also take on one another at Lakeside Recreation Centre with both looking to rebound from their Friday night defeats to open Round 9.

The last game on the huge Saturday night will see the Kalamunda Eastern Suns play the Joondalup Wolves at Ray Owen Sports Centre.

The round then concludes with two more match ups on Sunday afternoon with the Mandurah Magic at home to the Kalamunda Eastern Suns while the Warwick Senators are also hosting the Goldfields Giants.

NBL1 WEST – 2021 MEN'S SEASON
ROUND 9 – FRIDAY NIGHT

PERRY LAKES HAWKS 97 defeated LAKESIDE LIGHTNING 81

The Perry Lakes Hawks and Lakeside Lightning were two of the most impressive NBL1 West teams so far this season and that set the stage for a terrific match up at Bendat Basketball Centre on Friday night.

While the Hawks had lost to the Warwick Senators last week, they were without Ben Purser, Ryan Smith and Rob Cassir and prior to that had delivered massive wins over Kalamunda, Geraldton and Joondalup following a nail-biting defeat to Rockingham.

Meanwhile, the Lightning entered the game in some imposing form having handed out thumpings to the Eagles, Slammers (twice), Buccaneers, Senators and the Giants so far this season since their opening round defeat to Willetton.

Both teams reached the semi finals of the West Coast Classic last year with Perry Lakes getting to the Grand Final and Lakeside falling just short against the eventual champions Warwick.

The Lightning started well to lead 27-22 by quarter-time and then put up 31 points in the second term to head into half-time still on top of the Hawks leading 58-50.

Perry Lakes needed to find a way to slow down the Lightning after they had put up that 58 points in the second half, but nobody could have expected to what degree they would be able to shut them down.

The Hawks pretty much kept their pace offensively from the first half but the difference was what they did defensively to shut down to the Lightning and hold them to just the 10 points in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth.

Perry Lakes were back to full strength and delivered quite the dominant second half with Lewis Thomas ending the night with 25 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots. His frontcourt partner Andrew Ferguson put up eight points and nine rebounds too against his original club.

Ben Purser delivered another 21 points, seven assists and five rebounds, Ryan Smith 18 points, five rebounds and three assists, and Mitch Clarke 12 points and eight assists.

Jay Bowie top-scored for Lakeside with 22 points and four rebounds while hitting 4/8 from three-point territory.

Jack Isenbarger added 19 points for the Lightning on 4/7 from downtown with Rowan Mackenzie contributing 15 points and seven rebounds, and Kyle Armour 17 points, four rebounds and two assists.

ROCKINGHAM FLAMES 105 defeated EAST PERTH EAGLES 53

The Rockingham Flames kept pace at the top of the standings in the NBL1 West Men's Division with a big win at home over the East Perth Eagles on Friday night.

It always appeared a big task for the Eagles to take the challenge up to the Flames at Mike Barnett Sports Complex on Friday night to open Round 9 in the NBL1 West Men's Division, and that is how it played out.

East Perth did a reasonable job in the first quarter to only trail Rockingham by five points at quarter-time, but the Flames put their foot down in the second term with 31 points to eight to lead 52-24 by half-time.

It was more of the same in the second half with Rockingham outscoring East Perth 28 points to 17 in the third quarter, and 25 to 12 in the fourth.

The saw the Flames record the 105-53 victory to improve to a 7-2 record on the season while the Eagles fall to 2-8.

Callum Beard top-scored for Rockingham with 19 points and six rebounds while hitting 3/5 from downtown but the number of strong contributors they had was what was most impressive in the 52-point win.

Cirkook Makuac Riak also hit 4/6 from three-point land for 16 points with Atem Bior contributing 15 points and three rebounds, Ryan Godfrey 13 points, five rebounds and four assists, Brendan Redhead 12 points and four boards, Justin Beard eight points and 10 rebounds, and Greg Hire eight points, six boards and four assists.

Andrej Donlagic top-scored for East Perth with 16 points and five rebounds while nailing 4/7 from three-point range with Logan Thwaites contributing nine points and seven rebounds, and Anthony Filpo seven points and three boards.

COCKBURN COUGARS 78 lost to MANDURAH MAGIC 91

The Mandurah Magic have quite the addition about to arrive and they also produced an impressive performance away from home on Friday night.

The Cougars hosted the Magic at Wally Hagan Stadium to open Round 9 in the NBL1 West and it was the home team who started the better with Cockburn managing to take a 23-19 lead at quarter-time.

Mandurah was able to turn things around impressively in the second quarter scoring 25 points to just 14 from Cockburn to go into the half-time break leading 44-37.

The Magic then pulled further away in the third quarter with 27 points to 21, and that was enough to set up their eventual 91-78 away from home.

The result improves the Magic to a 4-5 record on the season and as of next week they will have perhaps the best credentialed point guard in the history of league running things, Scott Machado.

Machado has just completed his second season in the NBL at the Cairns Taipans and he performed well again despite the team's struggles putting up 15.6 points, 7.0 assists and 3.4 rebounds a game.

That comes on the back of his season the year before where he was the Taipans MVP, runner-up to Bryce Cotton in NBL MVP voting and named to the All-NBL First Team.

The Cougars now slip to a 2-7 record on the result of the 13-point loss at home to the Magic.

Jerami Grace top-scored on the night for Mandurah with 21 points, five rebounds and five steals while shooting 7/12 from the field.

Ben Smith added 17 points and eight rebounds for the Magic, Fred Williams 12 points and three boards, Cousteau Kyle eight points and three assists, Riley Parker eight points and four rebounds, Xavier Shaw eight points and four boards, and Jhonny Lutula seven points and five rebounds.

Nic Pozoglou put up 19 points, 11 rebounds, four steals and three assists for Cockburn with Zac Watkinson contributing 17 points and Gavin Field 11 points and three rebounds.