Townsville Flames Remain Undefeated

THERE is just no stopping the Townsville Flames this season as they improved to 3-0 in the NBL1 North and picked up a win over the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence team in last weekend’s double header.

Their winning ways continued on Friday night as they held off the South West Metro Pirates 71-61, riding behind 22 points from Courtney Woods with fellow starters Steph Reid (14 points, 7 rebounds) and Mia Murray (10 points 7 rebounds) also impressing.

Townsville Fire young gun Aliza Fabbro was also impactful, managing a quick-fire 12 points and 4 rebounds in just 20 minutes of action as the Flames produced a 24-11 fourth quarter to seal a third straight win to start their season.

The Flames backed up 24 hours later to produce a gritty 73-67 win over the Centre of Excellence laden with the top female prospects from around the country.

Townsville trailed by two at the first break but turned up the heat defensively to run out 73-67 winners in the NBL1 Wildcard challenge.

Reid again impressed with 17 points and 3 assists while Grace Rodgers added 14 points on stellar 7/10 shooting to go with 8 rebounds in the victory.

“I think our depth has really come out over the last few games, our ability to bring people off the bench that can come in and contribute the way have is a huge positive,” crafty Flames point guard Reid said.

“We got Aliza Fabbro back last week and she was great for us and we had Harriet Carey return as well.

“I still think we have a lot of room to grow so to be able to produce wins the way we are playing know, we know we have the potential to play so much better and it’s exciting to think how far we can go.”

Their male counterparts the Heat didn’t fare nearly well in their back-to-back, falling to South West Metro 94-90 in overtime on Friday before a disappointing 80-64 loss to the BA CoE team on Saturday night.

The Heat controlled proceeding for the majority of their clash with the Pirates but a fourth quarter collapse led to an extra period as South West Metro rode their late game momentum to seal an impressive 94-90 win in the extra period.

Townsville product Ethan Betts impressed with a game-high 26 points and import big man DeAndre Daniels had a 19-point, 14-rebound double double but the Heat were unable to make the big plays when it counted and fell to 2-1 for the season.

They then fell to an impressed Ba CoE team 80-64, with the visiting young guns running away with the contest behind a stellar 33-point team effort in the final term.

The Heat and Flames are back at home this Friday night, hosting NBL1 newcomers the Darwin Salties at STARFM Stadium.  

--

Rohan O'Neil