By Jonty Ralphsmith
The Pakenham Warriors women’s basketball team went down to a fast finishing Chelsea on Saturday.
In front of its home crowd, Pakenham was up by five points at halftime, but would go on to lose by 16 points.
It was tied up going into the final period where Chelsea ran over the top of Pakenham, outscoring the hosts 29-13.
Deanna Jolliffe (14 points) and Rebecca Szalek (13 points) were the major scorers for Pakenham.
Coach Simo Padjic was disappointed the Warriors could not sustain their effort for the full four quarters
“We got overrun at the end. We were there pretty much the whole time, it was just in the last five minutes or so they were a lot better than we were and outran us unfortunately,” he said.
“It was disappointing because we had put a lot of time and effort into preparing and trying to avoid those lapses. Otherwise I was quite happy with the game.”
Padjic was proud of his team’s fight without import Haille Nickerson, who missed her second consecutive week with an ankle injury which the coach anticipates will keep her out for another couple of weeks.
Chelsea got some momentum to start the second half, but Pakenham was able to stay with them for longer than the coach expected.
“We could very easily have folded and the game could have been over sooner but we made some strides in that department – we don’t give up that easily anymore so I was happy with that.”
The women have the winless Southern Peninsula next, at Hillview Stadium on Saturday 9 April at 7pm.
It was a strong weekend for the men as they won both their games to elevate themselves to third on the ladder in the 12 team competition.
The Warriors hosted Craigieburn on Saturday night and got off to a strong start that saw them 20 points up at quarter time, before ultimately retaining that lead throughout the game.
Pakenham recorded a 94-79 win, before getting the better of Maccabi by 21 points the following afternoon.
After being seven points down at halftime, Pakenham stormed home in a 50 point second half, lifting their season record to 3-1.
Josh Dodgson was among the contributors against Maccabi, with 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Joshua Dow recorded a double-double with 17 points and nine rebounds.
Joe Davis presented as a major scoring option with 24 points in each of the two games, while Ned Weideman justified the excitement around his recruitment, with 30 points across the weekend.
The men are next in action against Whittlesea this Saturday, with tip off at 7.30pm.
In the youth women’s league, Pakenham defeated Warrandyte and Craigieburn by seven and eight points respectively in its two games on the weekend.
It was 71 apiece at full-time of the Craigieburn match, before Pakenham ran away in overtime, led by Rhiannon Gallagher who scored 29 points.
Next up the Pakenham youth women host Craigieburn on Sunday afternoon and the youth men – who had a bye in round 3 – travel to Chelsea on Saturday.
