By JARROD POTTER
BIG V – ROUND 9
STEVE McQueen would have been pretty impressed with Keysborough’s great escape against Melbourne Uni.
While the high-flying Cougars were battling last-ranked Melbourne Uni, you couldn’t tell that disparity by the standard on-court as the scholars flew out of the blocks and left the visitors with a lot to do just to catch up.
Life wasn’t made any easier for Keysborough as tall trio Aaron Abram (19 points, 11 rebounds), Ben Morwood (15 points) and Kevin Benn (11 points) endured foul trouble, forcing coach Nathan Vogt to rearrange the roster and find a fightback after trailing 41-52 at half-time.
That revival was led by star recruit Calvin Enge (39 points, five rebounds), who put in his best performance for the club yet. Standing up when it mattered most, the swingman was extraordinary as he hit them from everywhere, probably even the bench as he was on that much of a shooting streak.
But the coach was most impressed with Enge’s defensive gold-standard; helping out against Uni import Delonte Joyce (37 points, seven rebounds) among others, before streaming up the court to make his own shots count.
The visitors absolutely caught fire in the second half; nailing 67 points on the back of some Herculean shooting from the entire roster.
But it boiled down to the last term; Keysborough was chasing Melbourne Uni by six entering the last quarter … but then the chaos began.
Enge and Steven Haddrell (15 points) found their range; the tall trio danced around final fouls as long as they could while chipping in.
It turned into a shootout, 40-to-26 in the final term, but when the dust settled Keysborough had stolen the victory by eight points.
“Fair bit of a grind for us – it was quite a scrappy game,” Vogt said. “When you’re playing in those games and it becomes a scrappy affair, you need to ride it out and focus on what you can control.
“Our boys just focused on the game plan and didn’t get too carried away with the way the game was flowing.
“We shot the lights out (in the fourth) – but our offence was generated by great defence – we shut them down and were able to push the ball to the other end.
“Every shot they hit was a tough shot and to be fair to them, it’s an unfair record and they’re a lot better than the record suggests.”
Vogt was elated by Enge’s full-court prominence as he filled any gap caused by team fouls.
“He was fantastic – I guess the thing that stats don’t show was how good he was at the other end,” Vogt said. “Defensively he was invaluable – it was best I’ve seen from him – once their import got hot, we got Calvin onto him and his work-rate was right up there.”
Keysborough will host Warrnambool on Sunday afternoon and a win would go a long way towards pushing the side into the BIG V top four.
“Pretty good spot to be in,” Vogt said. “From our point of view we played them (Warrnambool) last week and it was a tough game and we learned a lot from that and we’ll be better than experience.
“Loving Div 1 – it’s fantastic; we’ve been given a pretty tough run by the league but we’ve long wanted to be in Division 1 and over time we’re showing that we belong here.”
The Cougars women had a much more difficult time dealing with the Black Angels in the first match on the double-header.
The Keysy women were wiped off the floor in the second term as the scholars nailed 26 points to 13, building a handy buffer at the main break … and it only grew from there. To its credit, Keysborough dug in through the second half and managed to outshoot the opposition in percentage, but in the end the visitors failed to answer the questions set out on their biggest BIG V test this season.
Genevieve Abbott (12 points) led the score while Tamara Matecic (nine points, 12 rebounds) was impressive under the basket. The sixth placed Cougars battle Casey from 1pm on Sunday 29 May.
In SEABL news, Dandenong travelled to Bendigo on Sunday afternoon to play the Braves after the Journal went to print. The Rangers head up to Canberra for Saturday’s clash against the Gunners and Capitals Academy sides.
