Petrik brings his NBL1 success to the WNBL

The inaugural men’s NBL1 Coles Express National Finals championship coach Ryan Petrik believes his NBL1 success with the Rockingham Flames will help him lead the Perth Lynx in this WNBL season.

Petrik was last WNBL season’s Coach of the Year as the runners-up in the Grand Final. And having already led the Flames women to their first two championships, Petrik delivered Rockingham’s first-ever men’s NBL1 West championship, and then the inaugural national title a week later. 

The NBL1 West conference MVP Devondrick Walker led the Flames to the conference championship, taking home the Finals MVP along the way. But after being picked up by the Brisbane Bullets, Rockingham was left without their superstar for the national finals. 

The Flames still managed to win, through stellar ball movement and teamwork, coach Petrik explained that this experience helped shape his mindset for the WNBL season. 

“Then the national title was just something that was a weird experience because it was such a whirlwind,” he told Lynx media.

“You start playing these games and then realise that some of these teams have two or three imports, and some of them didn’t have to operate under a salary cap. So for us to compete against these teams when we are without Devondrick and Greg [Hire], two of our most important players.

“And then to win it anyway and to do it impressively where it’s not like we won by a fluke, we played pretty well to do it. That was a bit of a whirlwind and that’s actually given us a lot of confidence back here with the Lynx girls.

“But what we found at Rockingham was that without Devondrick, the ball just pinged around because it had to and the offence had to do a lot more heavy lifting. We needed our system to work now and it did, and the shooting took over.

“That’s the hope now we have with this Lynx team. We want the ball to fly around more this year because it has to without as many iso players. Then with all the shooting we’ve got, hopefully those two things turn us into a sum greater than our parts.”

The Lynx are oozing with NBL1 excellence this season. Two of the NBL1 West and National Finals champions from the Warwick Senators, Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard and Chloe Forster will play under Petrik this season.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL 80 NBL1 PLAYERS IN THE WNBL THIS SEASON

“Winning helps everything so it’s good that we’ve got a couple of girls from that Warwick team that won the national title too,” Petrik said.

“Mac’s pre-season has been great, she’s healthy and going really good. Little Chloe has fitted in great and she’s got to scrimmage a lot more since joining us. It was just a weird experience there in Melbourne where we watched the Warwick girls win before we played.” 

Congratulations to Mackenzie Clinch Hoycard and Head Coach Ryan Petrik who won their respective @NBL1_West division championships!

Mackenzie with Warwick Senators (Women)
Ryan as Head Coach of the Rockingham Flames (Men) pic.twitter.com/8rBlQGkokg

— Perth Lynx (@PerthLynx) September 4, 2022

Read the full article via the Perth Lynx here. 

Feature image via: Michael Farnell/Sports Imagery