An injury-ridden OneFortyOne women’s Pioneers side will take the court against top of the ladder Waverley at Wulanda Recreation and Convention Centre tomorrow night.
The Pioneers are coming off a difficult double-header road trip, where they lost two tough matches last weekend.
The Mount Gambier side is still without injured captain Cassandra Brown, while guard Imogen Rock will also miss after fracturing her eye socket.
However, the team will welcome back sharp-shooter Miela Goodchild, who was in Israel last weekend competing in the 3×3 World Cup Qualifier.
Goodchild was part of the Australian women’s team which is now off to the 2023 FIBA 3×3 World Cup after going undefeated in qualifiers.
It will be the Australian women’s fifth appearance in a world cup, with its best finish a bronze medal in 2012.
The Aussies finished fourth in 2019, ninth in 2017 and 11th in 2016.
The 2023 edition of the FIBA 3×3 World Cup will take place in Vienna, Austria, from May 30 to June 4.
When it comes to this weekend’s match, Pioneers head coach Matt Sutton said his side fought hard under tough circumstances on the weekend.
“We are proud of the girls for their spirit and the effort they showed,” he said.
“We are really proud of the Geelong game, they are a very professional team that has imports and high level Australians.”
Sutton said the side had to draw on its younger bench players, given the heavy workload for the senior members of the team.
“The toll of that showed the next day. We competed right to the end, but it was a tough ask,” he said.
Sutton said Brown’s injury would be reviewed this week to determine her return date, while awaiting further advice on Rock’s injury.
“Preparation will be tricky this week with the amount of players we have out and given some of the minutes our girls played on the weekend,” he said.
“Waverley is sitting top of ladder, so we need to do everything we can to give ourselves a shot.”
The men’s side is also coming off a tough double-header, with two losses knocking the Pioneers off top spot on the NBL1 South Conference ladder.
Head coach Richard Hill (pictured) said his side’s depth was tested on the weekend due to missing big man Jacob Lampkin, who suffered an ankle injury last week.
“It was a very tough, really good performance against a very good Geelong team that will be right up there at the end,” he said.
“We were a bit unlucky, we were 17 down early in the third quarter and had a tremendous fightback and missed some free throws down the stretch that we would have liked to make.
“We just had an unfortunate call go against us towards the end, those sort of calls do not happen very often, but it was one of those things.
“The following day the Tigers team was up for the game, it was a massive game for them with a lot of fanfare and they came out and shot the lights out early and we were running in mud, we just did not have any juice.
“We were very tired. Normally we deal with that but we were down without Jacob and so we really only had seven guys who played a lot of minutes.”
Hill said Waverley would again prove a challenge tomorrow night.
“Waverley, just like everyone else, is really good,” he said.
“We are going to be up against it, they have just added another import guard, they are a good team.”
Tomorrow night’s match is part of the Pink Round, with supporters encouraged to wear pink and support the Breast Cancer Network Australia as part of the Mother’s Day weekend.
