By Mark Halliday

 

WOMEN 

The South Adelaide women finally registered a win, their first in six contests this season, as they easily handled the Central Districts Lions, 84-59.

The Panthers benefited from a balanced scoring effort, while consistently exploiting the poor Central defence. Teresa Kinross led the Panthers with 16 points, Jess Mahony added 15 and five other Panthers each scored eight points.

On the defensive end, South exploited the lacklustre Lions defence. On numerous occasions the Lions were caught out by South cutting to the basket and receiving a pass while the defenders were looking the other way.

In the first quarter it was Mahony who took advantage, scoring eight points en route to a 12 point lead for South. Then Kinross continuously found the bottom of the net in the second, scoring seven in the quarter to extend the lead to 18 at the half.

The story of the Lions first half defence was mostly summed up when Kinross received the ball behind the three point line, wasn't picked up by a defender and had all the time in the world to calmly sink a triple.

The start of the second half told a different story, however, as the Lions mounted a comeback. Amy Lewis connected on back to back triples, then got the feed from Rosalie Cutri for a layup. Cutri scored six of her own to cut the lead to eight with six minutes left in the third.

But Centrals would get no closer, a three and a half minute scoring drought and only adding five points for the rest of the quarter saw the lead jump back out to 18 points and only got bigger towards the end of the game.

The Panthers had switched themselves back into gear. Madeline Cunningham and Ieva Nagy both had easy fast break layups while Mollie McKendrick was too quick for her opponent on the low post.

Lewis could only do so much for the Lions, her 25 points led all scorers, while Amy Onaca added 14 and Cutri's eight the only other significant contributions.

 

MEN 

The South Adelaide Panthers picked up a convincing win over the Central District Lions, blowing them out by 30 points in a 96-66 victory.

While the Panthers attacked the basket and favoured an inside oriented game, the Lions, by contrast, preferred to shoot the three with their line-up of great shooters.

Unfortunately for Centrals, their shots weren't falling as they went 0-for-7 in the first quarter and only connected on one triple in the second out of five further attempts.

To make matters worse, South were more successful from deep and the Lions had to deal with the additional threat of Jeremy Smith.

The Panthers import made life difficult for the Lions, as he sliced through the lane finishing over multiple defenders with crafty layups or hanging in the air to beat the defence.

Smith had 16 points at the half and team-mate Ryan Gardner scored all 12 of his from behind the arc to give the home side a massive 22 point lead at the major break.

The Lions matched the Panthers in the third quarter as they attacked the basket more often but the size of the South interior defenders were a deterrent and were having none of what the lions were offering.

Smith continued to cause troubles for the Lions as he topped scored with 26 points. Gardner finished with 18. Jordan Robertson, Brad Reid and Philip Brown all added 10 with Reid grabbing 12 rebounds and three blocks.

For the Lions, who had let the game get out of hand before the end of the first half, only two players registered double digit scoring. Tyler Kennedy led Central Districts with 17 while only connecting on two of his 12 attempts from three. Chris Clausen finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds.