THE Lapa Brazilian BBQ Restaurant Cockburn Cougars scored two wins over the South West Slammers at home on Friday night but there's little time to celebrate with a tough trip to Warwick Stadium to face the Stirling Senators on Saturday.

The Lady Cougars scored a strong win over the youthful Slammers at Wally Hagan Stadium on Friday night running out 85-62 winners to return to the top eight while the Men then backed that up with a 105-81 victory to retain top spot on the table ahead of the defending champion Joondalup Wolves.

Cockburn's Women came into the round in ninth position having lost their last three matches so nothing but a win was required at home to the Slammers on Friday night.

The young Slammers, with an average age of only 20, did well to stick with the Cougars in the first half to only trail by eight points at half-time, but with Candace Williams proving the dominant player on the court reinforcing her MVP credentials, the Cougars pulled away.

The Cougars got going after half-time with 42 points to 27 to pull away to the important 23-point win that sees them again back in the top eight at the expense of the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

Williams was once again outstanding for the Cougars finishing with 31 points, 26 rebounds and four assists while shooting 11-of-26 from the field and 9-of-13 at the line.

Cherridy Thornton worked hard inside despite her nagging foot injury with 12 points, eight boards and three assists.

Captain Chelsea Evans thrilled the home fans with three triples on her way to 11 points, five rebounds and two assists with Isabelle Miotti contributing seven points and five boards, Lauren Gandini six points and Nicole Roberts five points, four rebounds and three assists.

Cougars coach John Triscari wasn’t terribly happy with his team at half-time, but he liked what he saw in response to their talk at half-time.

"In the first half we didn’t execute very well. When you play a team like Slammers, they run a quick offence and you get sucked into the up-tempo stuff," Triscari said.

"We talked about that in the change rooms and made some adjustments, and I thought we played quite well in the second half. Candace Williams had a hell of a game."

The Cougars do need to keep winning to remain in the playoffs and their tough run home begins on Saturday night against a Stirling Senators team at Warwick Stadium that needs to win also to keep their post-season chances alive.

Triscari would be disappointed if his team didn’t come away victorious.

"This win for us I think puts us back in eighth and tomorrow night they've got the Slammers who play tough. Even when they were 20 points down they hung in there. So if we beat Stirling now we might be able to afford to drop one of the other games in the run home," Triscari said.

"Every game is a grand final for us now. We lost some games through the season that we shouldn’t have lost to put us in this position. We lost to Stirling and I don’t consider them to be a better side than us, but we'll see tomorrow night.

"We've also had a bit of a horror run with injuries with Taryn Priestly being out with a shoulder and Cherridy Thornton has done something to her foot. But every game is a grand final."

Then in the Men's clash at Wally Hagan Stadium, both the Cougars and Slammers came into the game missing key pieces with Cockburn without veterans Gavin Field and Daniel Thomas, but the Cougars have worked hard on having depth to cover the loss of key players at any point.

The Slammers were without Tre Nichols and Royal Crouch and the absence of those imports was always going to make it a tough night.

The Cougars did start on fire with a 14-4 run but the Slammers scored the next four points and remained competitive trailing by 10 at half-time.

But with Marcus Goode catching fire in the third quarter, the Cougars pulled away with 32 points to 22 to set up the eventual 24-point win that keeps them a game clear on top of the standings ahead of the Wolves.

Goode continued his remarkable first season ever playing outside the United States to reaffirm his MVP hopes with another 30 points, 14 rebounds and three blocked shots on the back of shooting 13-of-18 from the field and 2-of-4 from beyond the arc, with both threes coming in the third quarter.

Najee Lane had another strong game for the Cougars with 20 points, eight rebounds, five assists and four steals with Rhett Della into the starting line-up and delivering 17 points and four boards.

Julian Pesava started again and performed well with 10 points, three rebounds and three assists shooting 4-of-8 from the floor and 2-of-4 from downtown.

Steven Van Lit also started in the absence of Thomas with Cockburn got some strong performances off the bench with Jaarod Holmes contributing nine points and five rebounds, Jakob Knight four points and five boards, Matej Mandic four points, three rebounds and three assists, Jake Harris four points and Guy Arrowsmith four points.

Cougars coach Matt Parsons was happy with how his team played despite missing Field and Thomas, and that depth is something that was a focus of theirs coming into 2016 and it's paying off.

"The boys have been working really hard and we've had some cracker training sessions lately, it's almost been war. So to lose a couple of guys, I knew one thing we wouldn't drop was intensity and we still scored 105 points even though we didn’t execute overly well," Parsons said.

"They were missing a couple of guys too so it was always going to be one of those scrappy type of games where it would have a little bit of chaos, but we executed offence to the point where we took advantage of some of our isolations but didn’t really play our team game really well.

"With those guys missing, that's a lot of leadership there with 600 games missing but there's still 700 games of experience sitting on the bench. We recruited depth for a reason and these are the times we need that depth."

The Cougars now face another test on Saturday night heading to Warwick Stadium to take on the fourth placed Stirling Senators. Last time they met the Senators beat the Cougars by two points back in Week 4 and Parsons hopes his team learned some lessons from that.

"Stirling are tough. I say that because they can do a lot of things quickly. They play defence in spurts of two or three minutes where they can chop and change, and they take teams out of their comfort zone a lot," Parson said.

"We need to be prepared to counter that and I think the group that we've got can have a fair crack at it. I think we are where we want to be and I'm comfortable going into the matchup. But Stirling do a pose a danger and that's that they do have a number of dangerous players.

"Last time we played them Cody Ellis just went nuts so we need to understand that he's capable of doing that again, but we can't just concentrate on him. We have to stick to our defensive principles and give ourselves a shot."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Mick Cronin