COMING into the quarter finals the Willetton Tigers had the potential to dominate the Lakeside Lightning inside and that's how Game 1 panned out last Friday, but coach Simon Parker isn't taking anything for granted heading into this Friday's clash at Lakeside Recreation Centre.

The Tigers finished the regular season in third position coming off last year's grand final appearance, and coming into their quarter-final contest it appeared they had an advantage inside over the Lakeside Lightning with Louella Tomlinson, Zoe Harper and Emma Lobb.

While the Lightning did well in the first half hitting seven three-pointers to only trail by four points, the Tigers came out and dominated the second half on Friday night at Willetton Basketball Stadium holding Lakeside to 14 points, scoring 53 themselves and going on to win by 43.

Week 1 Friday night Women's SBL Quarter Final wrap 

It certainly was a case of the Willetton bigs having a significant impact with Harper ending up with 23 points and nine rebounds, and Tomlinson 18 points, six boards and three blocks.

Lobb gave good minutes with nine points, three assists and two rebounds as well. But most of Harper's work was done in the first half with Lakeside still in the contest and it was the Tigers' all-round strength that was key.

Kate Malpass finished with 17 points, eight assists and six rebounds, Desiree Kelley 12 points six boards and three steals, Emma Gandini nine points and Lara Napier six points and 10 assists.

Parker knows that even though he has a strong, talented and deep group, that nothing is guaranteed against a team that will give their all for the full 40, and potentially 80 minutes this weekend.

"We know we are a better side than them, but they work hard for 40 minutes no matter what's going on," Parker said.

"Even when they got behind they were still working hard for 40 minutes and I don’t expect it to be a cakewalk, it's still going to be pretty tough. We just have to start again and do what we did again in the second half of the first game."

Parker was especially happy and understandably so with the performance of his frontcourt against the Lightning last Friday night, particularly Harper who took advantage of some mismatches in the post to score at will for a while in the first half.

"Our bigs were really good. Zoe Harper was pretty active and so was Lou, that always helps and they were really active on their bigs," he said.

"They have to work pretty hard on our bigs. And add in Emma Lobb, we have three pretty big bigs for this league and it's pretty hard to defend them for 40 minutes. Especially when Zoe goes to work in the post and Lou can shoot threes, it makes it pretty hard to defend and they are pretty versatile.

"She (Harper) is probably one of the premier post players in the league when she wants to be and she just showed what she can actually do. Our plan was to go inside if we can, but if it was a little bit crowded we weren’t going to chuck the ball in. I don’t think they double-teamed as much in the post as what they normally do so that helped, but Zoe was laying the ball up and she played well."

Back in the second last round of the season, the Tigers and Lightning also met at Willetton Basketball Stadium and on that occasion Alison Schwagmeyer caught fire in the first quarter for Lakeside piling on 19 points.

The Tigers did well, though, keeping her to nine points the rest of that game and then to just seven points on 2-of-10 shooting last Friday night.

Parker has been delighted with the performance of his team defending Schwagmeyer over the last seven quarters against Lakeside.

"We did a really good job on Schwagmeyer, Ebony (Antonio) did a really good job on her in the third quarter to start with. We haven’t changed much but we are just face-guarding her a bit more and fronting her in the post," he said.

"We want to make it hard for her and to work for the ball rather than like a couple of weeks ago when she was driving at will and there was no one in the gaps. We are closing up those gaps and trying to be a bit more physical with her and trying to make her tired by working for the ball."

The Tigers team of 2016 has had very few changes from the one that went so close to winning the 2015 championship.

Swapping out Lisa Wallbutton for Emma Lobb is the only significant change and it is the chemistry within the group, cohesion of having worked together for a long time and the pain of last year that Parker likes the most in his group right now.

"In the pre-game talk we basically talked about where we were at last year and the season we've had, and where we need to be at, and we got to that level in the first game. We know that if everyone works hard and we don’t have any passengers, we are the team we want to be," Parker said.

"We are a pretty balanced team. We are a similar team to last year but with Lisa going out and Lobby coming in, but there's not a lot different.

"It's just that they are all good basketball players to be honest. They all know what each other can do and they support and trust each other, which is a big thing. Working for each other is a big thing for us."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday