Image via Perth Wheelcats.
The Wollongong Rollerhawks and Queensland Spinning Bullets enjoyed undefeated weekends to come out on top of Round 4.
In four games against the Perth Wheelcats and Red Dust Heelers, the Rollerhawks claimed four victories to further assert themselves on top of the ladder as they now sit four wins clear of their closest rival.
Three of their victories were comfortable but they had to come from behind in their first meeting with Perth after trailing by four points at half-time.
A 41-28 second half earned them a nine-point victory in the end as four players recorded double-doubles in Brett Stibners (22 points, ten rebounds), Luke Pople (22 points, ten rebounds, seven assists), Shawn Russell (17 points, 11 rebounds) and Nick Taylor (13 points, 13 assists).
Russell went on to average 17 points and nine boards for the weekend while Stibners tallied 51 points in Wollongong’s second clash with Red Dust to finish with 28 points per game.
Queensland traveled to West Adelaide for two matches in Round 4, prevailing 59-32 on Saturday night before succeeding 65-52 on Sunday.
Kurt Thomson paced them with 14.5 points across the two outings while Tom O’Neill-Thorne added 13.5 points with the Spinning Bullets putting together another strong team performance as they make the climb towards the top four after a slow start.
While they were unable to get past Wollongong in two contests, Perth did have success against the Sydney Metro Blues to finish with a 2-2 weekend.
That is good enough to keep them in top two and they performed admirably in Round 4 with a roster of just six players.
Shaun Norris (31 points, 7.5 rebounds, 12.8 assists) led the way, Michael Auprince averaged 24.5 points and 15.3 boards while Phil Stephens notched consecutive double-doubles against the Blues.
Also going 2-2 for the round, Sydney Metro balanced their losses to Perth with two wins over Red Dust.
In their first match-up, the Blues led by double-digits early in the fourth quarter but the Heelers reduced the deficit to four points with just over two minutes remaining.
CJ McCarthy-Grogan (21 points, 7.8 assists per game for the weekend) steadied the ship though, scoring ten of Sydney Metro’s next 12 points to secure a 69-59 win.
Coming off the bench through Round 4, Anderson Parker had a very efficient weekend by shooting 51% from the field for 17.5 points per contest while Sofyane Mehiaoui (14 points, 10.8 boards, 2.5 steals) and Keegan Oh-Chee also impressed.
Red Dust are still chasing their first to victory but again received solid performances from Thomas McHugh who had 35 points and ten rebounds in their narrow loss to Sydney Metro, Jake Kavanagh who tallied 13 points, ten rebounds and nine assists in their second clash with the Blues and Rob Pike who averaged 6.5 points per game off the bench.
The NWBL is back this weekend with the Kilsyth Cobras returning from their bye while Sydney Metro, Queensland and West Adelaide host games in Round 5.
