news

In the first weekend of the eight round league, the four teams travelled to Cockburn on Friday evening for the start of the league. Each game was a battle of bragging rights for north of the river, with Joondalup taking on East Perth and south of the river, with Cockburn battling it out with Mandurah.

With East Perth rolling out in their new team kits and Joondalup sporting the heritage round Wolves uniforms both teams started with some attractive transition basketball, but the easy baskets weren’t falling as well as both teams had hoped. Drew Williamson (ex-NBL and East Perth SBL star) stepped up to show why his nickname is the ‘Sniper’, finishing with a solid 20+ point performance. The young core of WA juniors in  McHugh, Herbert and Friday just couldn’t keep pace with the firepower of Shaun Norris as he took over and put on a shooting performance, to confirm why he’s been a mainstay in the Australian team for so long. Joondalup running out winners 90-63. Even more impressive was how Taishar Ovens, Amber Merritt, Shaun and coach Stephen Charlton had only returned from Australian duty in Tokyo, a few days earlier.

Owning the hosting rights for Round 1, Cockburn showed up in force with Tilly Muir and Kahlia Morgan of the Women’s SBL team, suiting up for their Wheelchair SBL debuts, alongside the likes of Sarah Vinci (Aus Gliders), Ben Moncrieff, Andrew Dewberry and Ben Sainsbury (2019 Junior National Champions with WA). Cockburn managed to continuously gain a 6-10point buffer throughout the first 3 quarters, but Mandurah lead by the hot shooting and great passing play on Rob Pike, Phil Turner (both of Red Dust Heelers) and Natalie Alexander (Perth Wheelcats) were able to show their experience and poise by continuing to throw scoring runs back at the Cougars. In the dying minutes though, Rob Pike sunk a few tough 3-pointers to cut the gap to a few points, but a missed opportunity in the last 30seconds, meant the Cougars held on for the win.

Thank you to all the fans, friends and family that came down to support Round 1.

Round 2 sees the league head to Mandurah (MARC- 303 Pinjarra Rd, Mandurah) this Saturday 14th September;

4:30pm Joondalup Wolves vs Cockburn Cougars

6:00pm East Perth Eagles vs Mandurah Magic

*FREE ENTRY*

	W	L	GD	Pts
Joondalup Wolves	1	0	+27	3
Cockburn Cougars	1	0	+3	3
Mandurah Magic	0	1	-3	0
East Perth Eagles	0	1	-27	0