The OneFortyOne Pioneers women took the court against a dominant and undefeated Geelong United in NBL1 South conference round seven action on Sunday – and faced the full wrath of the Victorians.


Geelong was coming off a solid 18 point victory over Knox on Friday night to continue their ladder leading form, while Mount Gambier was also coming off a good win the week prior against the Casey Cavaliers.


It was the Pioneers’ turn to host Geelong on their Wulanda court, having previously faced off in round one in Victoria, where United took the honours with a 40 point win.


The visitors burst out of the blocks on Sunday, racing to a 6-0 lead in the opening two minutes of play, before being up 14-4 halfway through the term.


From there Geelong put their foot down, outscoring Mount Gambier – 14-5 in the last five minutes of the stanza, to be up 28-9 at the first break.


The Pioneers used the change to regroup and came out firing in the second, opening with back to back three pointers from vice captain Haliegh Reinoehl and Cat MacGregor.


By half way through the quarter Mount Gambier had outscored Geelong 12-7, before the sides traded baskets for the remainder of the period to leave the Pioneers down by 11 at half time.


The third quarter was a fairly even affair, and despite long range efforts from Pioneers captain Isabella Brancatisano, the visitors remained ahead 60-47 at the final break.


Geelong repeated their first quarter efforts in the last stanza, opening the first three minutes of play with a 7-0 run.


It took a three pointer from Brancatisano to get the Pioneers on the board after almost four minutes played to stem the bleeding.


The Victorians then held the Pioneers scoreless again for a further four minutes, while piling on another nine points of their own, to blow out to a 28 point lead.


Mount Gambier managed another six points, but the damage had been done and Geelong United took the game 83-56.


Brancatisano led the way for her side, registering 15 points, with Reinoehl contributing 14 and Jayda Jansen 11.


Geelong’s Hannah Hank dominated for the visitors with 22 points and 11 rebounds, while teammate Jaz Shelley chipped in with 19 points.


Pioneers head coach Matt Sutton said his side was disappointed with the loss, however believed Geelong demonstrated why they are the number one team.


“Our start was not good, we did not capitalise on some opportunities to score and they did, which opened up a bit the gap which stood after the first quarter,” he said.


“We felt like we could have been a bit sharper in the first quarter.


“We tightened things up across the next two quarters and put ourselves in a good spot going into the last quarter.


“But we were not able to hold on to the form we showed in the second quarter.”


Sutton said his players had showed their talent in the second quarter, but were not able to sustain it against the visitors.


“It was what we were hoping from the start, the plan and the effort would coincide and we thought the girls did a good job with executing and taking away some strengths for Geelong,” he said.


“We were just hoping to be able to do it for longer.


“We were not surprised we had moments like that, but we were just hoping we could have done that from the start.”


Sutton said his players had battled hard against the top team in the competition.


“We had moments, I would not say anyone particularly had the game they would have expected for themselves,” he said.


“Our usual suspects like Haliegh battled really hard, we also had some good defensive moments, but we just did not have any consistent moments across the four quarters.”


The OneFortyOne Pioneers are on the road again this weekend for a Victorian double header.


They will face the Ballarat Miners on Saturday night, before backing up against the Bendigo Braves on Sunday.