Tara Murray
The Altona Gators overcame a slow start against the Bulleen Boomers to keep their Big V men’s division 1 season alive.
Facing off in an elimination final on Saturday night, the Gators had to do it the hard way trailing by 11 points at quarter time.
The Gators slowly worked their way back into the game and trailed by one point at the last break.
A 22-15 final quarter was enough to give the Gators a win and a spot in the semi finals.
Coach Josh Turton said there were a mixture of emotions during the game but he backed his group in to get it done in the second half.
He said the group wasn’t as locked in as they should have been to start the game and it reflected on the scoreboard.
“I’m very happy now,” he said. “We didn’t play great in the first half.
“At quarter time I was pretty angry and we were trying to fix things. At half time we spoke about releasing things and after that we could score a bit easily.”
Turton said with the game placed at a fast pace they were hoping it would tire out the more experienced Boomers line up.
He said they wanted to continue to be super aggressive to get the most out of their game. He said he always thought they would fight back.
“We didn’t want to leave anything out there,” he said. “We executed the best we had all season in the last quarter.
“Even when we weren’t scoring we were defensively locked into the game. We didn’t let anything get to us.”
Samson Rocker top scored with 25 points, while Nicholas Patel scored 23 points to lead the way.
Nicholas Kiefer provided a spark off the bench and played a big role down the stretch and they turned to him instead of import Brian Adams.
“Brian was still really good and is an energy guy for us,” Turton said. “He sees games at a high level.
“We felt Keifer was playing really good within that line up.”
The Gators are now through to the semi finals, where they will play a knock out semi final against the Whittlesea Pacers.
The match is a rematch of last year’s division 2 grand final. Of the matches between the two teams in the past two seasons, five of the six have been decided by five points or less.
“They are the only team we haven’t beaten this year,” Turton said. “We’ve met them six or seven times in the last two years.
“They have beaten us by a combined six points this season. Last time we played well but didn’t execute in the final quarter.”
In women’s division 1, the Gators finished the regular season with a 97-70 win against the Collingwood All-Stars.
Five Gators players finished in double figures as every player got at least nine minutes court time.
The Gators finish the regular season in fourth spot.
