Tara Murray
The Altona Gators are one step closer to winning their first Big V senior men’s championship, after earning the right to host the grand final.
The Gators won through to the division 2 grand final on Saturday night with a thrilling win against minor premiers, the Whittlesea Pacers, winning 94-91.
For coach Josh Turton and the team, it’s a pretty incredible feeling.
“It’s really hard to put into words,” he said. “It was quite surreal after the game realising we had done it.
“The work that Jordan [Lino] put in last year and the changes and adapting to it. It’s been a good two years of work and we get an opportunity to play in a grand final, it is fantastic.”
The Gators had to work hard to get the win, coming from behind at three quarter time.
The Pacers jumped out to an eight point lead at quarter time, which was reduced to five points heading into the final break.
Turton said they had plenty of confidence in the group to get the job done.
“It definitely wasn’t our best game, with Whittlesea being a great team,” he said.
“It was a bit different to a couple of weeks ago when we were against each other. The game was still within reach and we’ve been in situations where we have been down 20 points and come back.
“We’ve really learned to play these games and I thought we did it really well.”
Turton said the message at the last break was to just be calm as they were just five points down and still in the game.
He said they just focused on playing Altona basketball in the last quarter and it paid off.
The Pacers remained in front for the first three and half minutes of the quarter, before the scores were level on a number of occasions.
The Gators finally hit the lead with nearly one and half minutes on the clock, before the scores were level again.
The Gators hit the front for the last time with 18 seconds left and were able to hold on and win.
Samson Rocker was the star of the show for the Gators with 32 points.
“Samson has had a tough shooting patch for two months,” Turton said. “He himself was a bit worried about it but I knew he would find it.
“His defence is elite and he does it at both ends. He was strong defensively and capped it off with a good scoring night.”
The win not only gets the Gators into the grand final, they will have the chance to host it.
Turton said that was pretty good for the club.
“Altona will be rocking in a couple of weeks time,” he said.
The Gators now have the week off, with Whittlesea to play the Wallan Panthers on the weekend in the preliminary final.
Turton said for them it is business as usual.
“We will not change up anything, we will stick with what we have been doing the last couple of months.”
The Gators women’s youth league championship side’s season is over after losing their preliminary final, 83-66.
