NBL1 West Recap | Sunday Men's Round 10

The Joondalup Wolves had to withstand some hot Aaron Ralph shooting and the talents of Mathiang Muo, but they shutdown the Geraldton Buccaneers in the fourth quarter for the Sunday road victory.

The Buccs hosted the Wolves on Sunday at Active West Stadium in a rematch of the 2019 Grand Final and it was Geraldton leading through four quarters, but the Wolfpack kept them to just two fourth quarter points on the way to the eventual 19-point victory.

Round 10 in the NBL1 West Men's Division began with two matches on Friday night with the Perth Redbacks beating the Joondalup Wolves 100-87 and the Lakeside Lightning defeating the Warwick Senators 94-80.

Saturday night's action then got underway with the Geraldton Buccaneers beating the East Perth Eagles 81-62 while the Perth Redbacks also beat the South West Slammers 88-53 and the Perry Lakes Hawks defeated the Cockburn Cougars 89-71.

The Willetton Tigers then held out Scott Machado and the Mandurah Magic for the 94-91 victory with the Kalamunda Eastern Suns coming from behind to beat the Goldfields Giants 99-96 in Kalgoorlie, and the Lakeside Lightning downed the Rockingham Flames 88-69.

There was then one more match to take place in Round 10 of the NBL1 West Men's Division on Sunday afternoon with both the Geraldton Buccaneers and Joondalup Wolves playing their second games of the weekend.

Both ended up splitting their two games for Round 10 with the Wolfpack heading to Geraldton and coming away with the 88-69 victory against the Buccaneers.

NBL1 WEST – 2021 MEN'S SEASON
ROUND 10 – SUNDAY

GERALDTON BUCCANEERS 69 lost to JOONDALUP WOLVES 88
Quite a rivalry built up between the Geraldton Buccaneers and Joondalup Wolves leading into the 2019 Grand Final and that resumed on Sunday afternoon at Active West Stadium.

The 2019 champion Buccs played host to the Wolfpack in the match to close Round 10 of the NBL1 West season with each team having already played a game earlier in the weekend.

Joondalup lost away to the Perth Redbacks on Friday night before jumping on the bus to Geraldton while the Buccs hosted the East Perth Eagles as well on Saturday evening and recorded the 19-point victory.

So that set the table for a tantalising Sunday afternoon battle and both teams came out ready to put on a show combining for 52 points in the opening term with the Buccs leading the Wolves 27-25 by quarter-time.

Geraldton kept things rolling in the second period too with 408-game championship veteran Aaron Ralph draining three ball after three ball. That helped the Buccs put up another 26 points for the quarter to head into half-time in control leading 53-43.

The game wasn’t done as a contest, though, and the Wolfpack worked their way back into it through the third quarter away from home and had closed that 10-point gap into just a five-point deficit by three quarter-time.

It was then a dominant final quarter performance from Joondalup as they held Geraldton to just the two points the entire 10 minutes, which was a Brandon Holloway bucket made with just under five minutes to go.

Prior to that, the Wolfpack had scored the opening 12 points of the quarter and following that, they finished the game on a 14-0 run to take out the 88-69 on the back of the stunning second half turnaround.

The win improves Joondalup to a 7-4 record on the season after 10 rounds while Geraldton is now 3-6.

Jonathan Wade finished the afternoon with 19 points, 10 rebounds and six assists for the Wolfpack while Trian Iliadis added 19 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals.

Seb Salinas also had 13 points and six rebounds, Lochlan Cummings 13 points, seven rebounds and three assists, and Joel Vaiangina seven points and eight rebounds.

Mathiang Muo ended the game with 29 points and six rebounds for Geraldton while Aaron Ralph caught fire in the first half on his way to 23 points, seven rebounds and three assists on the back of hitting 7/14 from three-point territory.