By JARROD POTTER
SEABL EAST CONFERENCE – Preliminary Final
SUPERCATS by name and Supercats by their actions.
The Geelong basketball powerhouse was just too strong for Dandenong – the Rangers’ SEABL men having their season cut short on Saturday with a 97-80 loss.
The heroic exploits of an injury-ravaged Dandenong roster finally caught up to them, but not after swinging for the fences in one last SEABL 2015 battle.
Geelong fired on all cylinders through the first term though – dominating the boards at both ends to rattle off a 32-16 lead.
It left the Rangers chasing all night – leaving the heavy-lifting up to Daequon Montreal (24 points, 10 rebounds) and Lucas Walker (13 points, 10 rebounds), who continued to lead the charge right up to the final siren of the year.
Digging deep with the season on the line, Dandenong rallied to win the next two terms and cut the margin back to nine coming into the final quarter.
Montreal dropped his two treys in an action-packed second term blitz – cutting the gap to 10 by the main break.
But no matter what Dandenong did – running Matt Owies and Dwayne Campbell for outside shooting, bringing on Mason Peatling, or passing the ball around like crazy to find the open shot – the gap barely dropped below double digits for the remainder of the night.
Fouls also mounted for Dandenong, leaving coach Darren Perry little option but to rotate his inexperienced bench featuring a number of teenagers.
The gallantry was put to bed by Geelong’s tremendous trio Kimmani Barrett (23 points), Nick Owusu (20) and Nathan Herbert (20) – to book a spot in Saturday’s (5 September) SEABL East Conference playoff against Albury-Wodonga.
Rangers’ guard Calvin Enge (9 points) also excelled to drop four-for-four from the field.
Dandenong still has one side left in the SEABL premiership hunt, with the women given the chance to avenge the men when they face none other than Geelong on Saturday evening (5 September) in a SEABL Conference playoff from 7pm.
