Rwanda
There was a long gap after the regular season was finished, but the semifinals started on Friday as teams tried to the field stronger lineups for the playoffs. REG had been undefeated in the regular season, but knew that it would be a tough matchup for them in the first game. Kristina King grabbed 22 rebounds to secure their opening win over APR. The Hoops started their series with a win over Kepler in the next game.
Australia
The playoffs continued in NBL1 as the semifinals in the South conference were on Sunday. The Sandringham Sabres were looking to knock out the top seed, but the Knox Raiders came back in the second half to get the win. The Waverley Falcons won the other game, getting past the Diamond Valley Eagles.
The North conference finals are a best of three series played all over the same weekend. River Baldwin had 31 points on Friday to help the Mackay Meteorettes get the opening win. Courtney Woods had 30 points in the loss for the Townsville Flames and then poured in 39 points on Saturday to make sure that they avoided elimination. She missed Sunday’s game though and Mackay got the final win.
Both the quarterfinals and semifinals were played in the West conference this week. The Warwick Senators defeated the Joondalup Wolves on Thursday and the East Perth Eagles defeated the Goldfields Giants on Friday. Warwick won again on Saturday, somehow withstanding a 47 point performance from Amy Atwell to prevail in overtime over the Rockingham Flames. Darcee Garbin led the top seed Cockburn Cougars with 32 points on Sunday as they defeated East Perth.
The semifinals in the East conference were both played on Saturday to set up next Sunday’s championship game. The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles took the early, but needed to hang on in the second half to stun the undefeated Norths Bears. The Bankstown Bruins defeated the youngsters of the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence to join them.
The top two teams met in the Central conference championship game on Saturday to also determine who would represent the hosting state in the league’s national championship. The West Adelaide Bearcats had a fantastic season, but the Sturt Sabres took the lead early and stayed ahead late to avenge their loss from two weeks ago and lift the crown.
The regular season concluded in Big V’s top division as the McKinnon Cougars won twice to make sure that they finished a game ahead of the Sherbrooke Suns. The playoffs started in the other two divisions. In the middle tier quarterfinals, the Whittlesea Pacers eliminated Gippsland and the Camberwell Dragons defeated the Mildura Heat. In the bottom division, the Surfcoast Chargers edged the Mornington Breakers and Emmie Gardner had 31 points and 30 rebounds to lead the Wallan Panthers past the Coburg Giants.
Leave a Reply