THE Willetton Tigers had to battle hard to leave Willetton Basketball Stadium with two wins over the Lakeside Lightning on Friday and coaches Simon Parker and Steve Black are focused on more of a four-quarter performance on Saturday against the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.

While the Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers did come away with wins over the Lightning on their home floor with the Women winning 72-66 and the Men 104-101 in a heart stopper, both Parker and Black saw plenty to work on heading into Saturday night's clash with the Suns at Ray Owen Recreation Centre.

Friday night got underway with the Women's clash and Lakeside's Alison Schwagmeyer was unstoppable in the first quarter going for 19 points. But the Tigers did well the rest of the night limiting her to nine points the final three quarters.

Willetton ended up pulling away from Lakeside in the fourth quarter with Kate Malpass knocking down several elbow jumpers, Louella Tomlinson terrific inside and Desiree Kelley finding her groove following an interrupted season.

It was an important win for the Tigers as well to secure third position after losses to the top two teams the Joondalup Wolves and Rockingham Flames the past couple of weeks.

Tomlinson ended up with 29 points and six rebounds on 12-of-15 shooting with Malpass adding 20 points and five assists shooting 7-of-14 and Kelley adding nine points, five rebounds and three assists.

Parker in the end was happy that the Tigers were able to withstand the barrage from Schwagmeyer from the first quarter and steady for their 15th win of the season.

"She had 19 in the first quarter and we were only eight points away from the game so we were happy to withstand that. We were playing pretty average," Parker said.

"The last quarter was then more like how we like to play and that's why we won the game. We just wanted to play with the confidence we used to and if you have a shot, take it.

"Kate got going in the last quarter, Des got going a bit in the third and I didn’t realise Louella was 12-of-15 so that's a pretty good clip and it was a pretty quiet 29 which is nice. One thing we spoke about was our bigs working a little bit harder inside getting rebounds and they were able to do that."

There's little time to enjoy the win for the Tigers, though, as they head to Kalamunda to face an Eastern Suns team who need to win to remain in the top eight even though they will be without suspended star Carley Mijovic.

"Apparently Carley won't be playing which makes it a bit tough to prepare for them because you just don’t know, but we just have to work hard on getting off to a good start," Parker said.

"If we get off to a good start unlike against Lakeside then we should be alright."

It was then on to the Men's clash on Friday night and again Lakeside got off to a fast start against a Willetton team needing to win to remain in the top four, and who were coming off losing its last two games to the Rockingham Flames and Joondalup Wolves.

With Daniel Alexander on fire in the first half, the Lightning went into the break leading by 10 points but the Tigers found something after a slow start to the third quarter to end up winning a thriller by three.

Charles Funches did as well as anyone could guarding Alexander in the second half in the mood he was in and the Tigers import big also had 17 points, five rebounds and two boards himself while nailing two threes and a dagger long two down the stretch.

Jay Bowie again came up big for Willetton with 30 points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals while Kyle Armour was outstanding leading the team and running the point with 17 points. Damien Scott added 16 points, Nic Cody 11 (seven rebounds) and Josh Johnson 10 (nine boards, four steals, there assists).

While Willetton had to survive a potentially match-winning three from Alexander at the finish, it was an important win and Black was happy to see his team bounce back from a couple of losses, and having to take the best from someone like Alexander.

"I was a little disappointed with the way that we played but full credit to them, they really played hard and Alexander was pretty special. Sometimes that happens and we just hung in there and were able to come away at the end with a couple of lucky shots really," Black said.

"Any close game is a good chance to find out how you handle those situations. I was actually pretty happy with how we handled the Rockingham game last Sunday but we just missed a couple of shots, and that's fine. But here we figured out the work that we have to put in during a first half to not put ourselves in this situation."

The Tigers now look to take on an Eastern Suns team on Saturday night that Black is fully aware could make them pay if they aren’t fully switched on. Considering they average 107.6 points a game, Black knows they have to be respected.

"I would hope that after this game our guys are well aware of the challenge that Kalamunda pose to us," Black said.

"The fact that if we don’t come with 100 per cent of everything that we've got then every team in this league is not only going to knock you off, but beat you up. I would hope that that's the message we received after this game. We got lucky to come away with one and we can't expect to get lucky again."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday