Puerto Rico
The league continued on Tuesday with a pair of games, starting with Yauco picking up their first win when they hosted Santurce. Carolina defeated Isabela in the night’s other game. The last two teams to start their seasons did so on Wednesday as Caguas trailed early, but forced overtime and defeated Moca. The top draft pick did not play for Ponce, but they got the win over Manati. There were also two games on Thursday as Isabela defeated Yauco for the second time. Tess Amundsen had 32 points to help Juana Diaz avenge their opening loss and complete a comeback win over Hatillo. Carolina defeated Ponce on Friday and Santurce fended off Caguas. Yauco was supposed to host Manati on Saturday, but the game had to be postponed due to court conditions. Both Sunday games were played though as Moca defeated Ponce and Isabela defeated Carolina.
Australia
The NBL1 national tournament was played over the weekend with the Waverley Falcons looking to defend their crown against the five conference winners from this season. The tournament has the rather unusual format of using two games per team to determine who would make Sunday’s final. Waverley suffered a setback in the first game on Friday when the North champion Logan Thunder completed a big comeback by prevailing in overtime. The South champion Knox Raiders won the next game against the East champion Manly Warringah Sea Eagles. The final game of the day was quite a show as the Cockburn Cougars racked up 132 points against the Central champion Woodville Warriors as Ruby Porter led the West champions with 34 points.
Saturday’s games started with a matchup of teams that had lost their openers and the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles did get the easy win over the Woodville Warriors with their conferences being considered weaker than the others. The Knox Raiders defeated their conference rivals, the Waverley Falcons, to secure their spot in the final after shaking off a slow start. The battle of first day winners closed out the slate and the Cockburn Cougars also advanced to the final with their win over the Logan Thunder. That set up a championship game where they were looking to finish as the lone undefeated team in the nation, but Knox, which had already eliminated one team’s dream to do that, took the lead by halftime and had a strong second half to win the game.
The Big V top division final was on Saturday with the top seed Bellarine Storm looking to win the championship. The Bulleen Boomers had all of the momentum though, having to take the long path through the playoffs from fourth place, and they had a strong second half to get the win.
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