THE Joondalup Wolves finished on top of the Women's SBL and have dominated their three playoff games so far but coach Craig Friday knows that the Perry Lakes Hawks still pose a threat with a Grand Final berth on the line this weekend.

The Merriwa Tavern & Bistro Joondalup City Wolves had an outstanding regular season finishing on top of the Women's SBL with a 19-3 record and then cruised through the quarter finals beating the Cockburn Cougars by a combined 38 points in the two games.

Then at Joondalup Basketball Stadium on Saturday night, the Lady Wolfpack blew the Hawks away racing to a 15-1 and 21-5 lead before going onto lead 51-14 at half-time and finish up winning the game 80-50.

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That took the Wolves to within one game of qualifying for next Friday's Grand Final with Game 2 against the Hawks to take place this Friday night at Bendat Basketball Centre. If Perry Lakes is able to win that, the deciding Game 3 will be back at Joondalup Basketball Stadium on Saturday night.

It was a dominant Game 1 performance on Saturday by the Lady Wolfpack but coach Friday knows that Hawks coach CJ Jackson would have seen some things that worked a little better for his team in the second half and that Game 2 will be a much more hotly contested affair.

"CJ's a good coach and he will get them up and about. He knows how to get his team going and they will come out pretty fired up. I don’t think they will be too happy with their first quarter especially so he'll alter a few things and they'll come out aggressive," Friday said.

"If we can absorb that and defend that then we should be OK, but obviously we lose Ellyce so that takes out a good presence for us. But we have worked on that and we'll see what we can do next week."

Shani Amos had an outstanding performance on Saturday night running the point for the Wolves.

While Klara Wischer did score 21 points to go with seven rebounds and five assists, Nikita-Lee Martin scored 14 points and Amy Kidner had 10 points, seven boards and four steals, it was Amos' night with 24 points, six rebounds, six assists and five steals nailing 6-of-10 from three-point territory.

Her pressure was also a big factor in the Hawks coughing up 26 turnovers and Friday was delighted for Amos to have the standout performance.

"It's good reward for Shani. She's been disciplined all year and on any given it could be any one of our starting group who scores," he said.

"This game it was Shani's opportunity and credit to her. She knocked down her shots and executed with poise as well so it was a really, really solid game from her."

While the Hawks possess some other threats with quality emerging players, there's no doubt their greatest threat comes in the form of star veterans Deanna Smith and Antonia Edmondson.

Friday was reasonably happy with the job done on the pair on Saturday night but feels they can improve in that area this weekend.

"I thought we did a good job on them early but they got away from us a bit late, but it's hard to maintain that discipline when you're up by a decent margin early," he said.

"We locked in on them and did a pretty good job. And it's not just the player who is defending that individual, it's cutting off those other avenues behind her and the location points that they like to establish behind their offence."

One big change coming into Friday's Game 2 at Bendat Basketball Centre is the fact that the Wolves will be without imposing centre Ellyce Ironmonger who is in the United States for a wedding. Friday is confident the rest of his team can stand up in her absence.

"It's just about maintaining focus on the process we've got in place and making sure we continue to execute the way we want to defend, and what we discussed offensively as well to make sure we have that discipline and attention to detail with what we do," Friday said.

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Serene-Elise Photography