By Tara Murray
Hume City Broncos’ season has ended in a high-scoring elimination final against Southern Peninsula Sharks in Big V women’s state championship.
Having knocked off the Sharks in recent weeks, the Broncos took a lot of confidence into the game.
But the Broncos were unable to stop the onslaught of the Shark, who won 90-84.
Broncos coach Michael Thomas said the key was to get the game on their terms, but they weren’t able to do so.
“I think we played really different styles in the first two times we played Southern Pen,” he said.
“The second time was more our style – a bit slower and scoring high 60s to low 70s. ”We always knew if Southern Pen could drop above 75 points, it gets really difficult.
“They got 90 and we could only get 82. They are a classy unit when they get shooting and they did that really well.”
After a fast start that included HUME leading by 10 points in the first quarter, the Broncos then found themselves doing the chasing.
Each time they got close, or even taking the lead on a couple of occasions, the Sharks found another level.
In the end, there were a couple glaring stats that went in the favour of the Sharks favour that had a big impact.
They had 18 more field goal attempts and 31 shots from the three-point line, hitting 14 of them.
The Broncos just had 12 shots from that distance.
Thomas said the Sharks were able to generate a number of offensive rebounds at key times.
“Credit to them, they got their style of play going,” he said.
For much of the night the Broncos, were outstanding when they shot the ball. They shot at 52 per cent from the field and a massive 83 per cent from the three-point line, hitting 10 of 12 shots from that distance.
Unfortunately, their worst shooting came in the dying minutes.
“In key moments, we missed some shots,” Thomas said. “We missed a couple of shots we would normally make in key moments. The last two to three minutes, we had our chances.”
Bianca Babic top scored for the Broncos with 20 points, including hitting six of seven three point shots.
Nicole Zammit scored 18 points as she went head to head with rising star Jazmin Shelley.
Thomas, in his first year as coach of the side, said the club was pleased with how the side had progressed as the season went on.
“Outside our group, most people think we over achieved,” he said.
“Obviously, it was the first year without Colleen [Planeta] and we had two new imports, lots of juniors coming through.
“We thought mid-table was good and that’s where we’ve been sitting all year. We didn’t finish the season as we would have liked, but at the same time if you had have said we would have finished fourth at the end of the regular season, we would have thought it was a good year.”
