Finals battle continues

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Lechelle Earl, owner/editor




Finals battle continues

The Castec Rural Pioneers will be in a battle for their finals future as they take to the court against the Eltham Wildcats on Saturday night.


The Pioneers will face the Wildcats in the elimination semi final in the NBL1 South conference at Wulanda, with tip off at 7pm.


Eltham has already faced and survived an elimination match as they took on Geelong United last weekend, coming away with a five point victory.


The Pioneers last week lost their qualifying final against the Sandringham Sabres, but due to finishing the season as minor premiers they secured a double chance.


Last time these sides met it was a thrilling game where the Wildcats just got away with the victory, winning by two points.


Two of Eltham’s key players will be Angus Glover and Owen Foxwell who are both coming off big games last week and were influential in the victory over Mount Gambier in the last meeting.


Another key player for Eltham will be Ralph Bissainthe who dominated the Pioneers last time these sides played, scoring 33 points and hitting seven threes on 70% shooting.


Last game the Pioneers were solid on defence, but will need to step up to combat Eltham’s fire power; they cannot afford to let anyone get hot and take control of the game.


On the other side of the ball Mount Gambier needed to be much more consistent as they only had one player score in double digits while also finishing the game with their lowest score for the season.


Heading into this game head coach Richard Hill hopes his side performs better than they did last week against Sandringham and believes this will be another really tough challenge.


“Hopefully we do better than we did against Sandringham, they’re pretty good, I think they’re on a nine or 10 game winning streak so it does not get any easier,” he said.


“If we play well then I think we can win, last time they were in town both teams were at full strength and they got us on pretty much the last shot, so it could be that close, but we are playing better now than back then so that’s a good thing – but they are too.”


Hill said offensively his side will need to shoot the ball better this week and will also look for improved ball movement.


“We just need to shoot the ball a little better and function a bit better offensively, Sandringham’s defence was high level, we actually defended really well ourselves, to keep them to 75 was outstanding because they average 95, so we did a great job on the defensive end but they did an even better job than what we did,” Hill said.


“So we just need to try to free up some better shots and to knock down some shots, we did not shoot the ball very well, some of that was due to their defence, so we will be aiming to try and get a little bit better ball movement and hopefully shoot the ball better.”


Hill believes the team will have plenty of motivation heading into the game, with the chance of elimination looming.


“I do not think we need too much motivation, it’s win or go home – so we need to win if we want to keep playing. 


“That should be tremendous motivation for both teams really so you would expect it to be pretty intense and very competitive, what happens – who knows, that’s sport,” he said.


“We have a plan and we will do a lot of scouting as will they but at the end of the day you hope that you can function well and knock down some shots, so the guys will be up for it no question about that.”

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