Monday, 28th May, 2012

The Victoria Dandenong Rangers played very well to defeat Sydney Uni 85-72 in Saturday's Wheelchair Sports NSW Game Night at SUSAC. With Brisbane winning twice over Adelaide on the weekend, the WheelKings must now win one of their final 2 games to make the finals.

Playing their last home game of the regular seaon before a large crowd, Sydney Uni coach Gerry Hewson had to make several adjustments to his line-up because of the absence of Kylie Gauci, Sarah Stewart and Tina McKenzie who were with the Australian Gliders in the UK, and Keegan Oh-Chee who was overseas playing tennis.

Starting in the place of Kylie and Keegan were guards Brad Grove and Katie Hill who were both being called on to play big minutes. Rounding out the starting 5 were regulars Josh Meoli, CJ Grogan and Craig Cannane.

The WheelKings have been getting off to very slow starts this season and digging themselves holes that have been too difficult to get out of. Not so this game with Sydney competing well against the taller Rangers to trail 19-15 at the first break.

CJ Grogan and Craig Canane were taking and making some great shots for a combined 13 of the 15 points. However, they couldn't find an answer on defence for the Dandenong bigs Daniel Del Toso and Ben Hodgens who had all of their team's points.

Josh Meoli stepped up for the WheelKings to open the second term, hitting the team's first 4 points. But Del Toso and Hodgens were creating havoc at the other end as they continued to get easy inside shots. Coach Hewson tried different strategies to keep them out of the paint but Dandenong's rookie coach Andrew Fisher had his guards working hard to set picks for his primary scorers, and the visitors outscored Sydney 21-12 in the period.

Down 42-27 at the half, it looked over for Sydney but Cananne, Grove, Grogan and Hill weren't giving up. They went on a riot offensively scoring 24 points collectively to get the deficit back to a manageable 10 points going into the last quarter.

In a tremendously exciting last quarter, the WheelKings went to veteran Cannane who continually drew fouls and went to the free throw line. He piled on 12 points in the term as Sydney got within 8 with under 5 minutes remaining. But the comeback stalled with a number of missed free throws and a couple of untimely turnovers breaking the pressure on the Rangers.

The 13 point loss without Oh-Chee and Gauci was still a very good performance as the WheelKings kept their turnovers to just 10 and they ultimately matched the bigger Rangers on the boards. They also had their best shooting performance of the season with a 49% accuracy.

Sydney travels to Dandenong next weekend for a double-header and, as stated above, they must win 1 game to make the finals. 2 losses will put Sydney on equal points with Brisbane but the latter owns the head-to-head and would therefore advance.

Maybe you can't fly to Melbourne to support your team but you can follow these crucial games online on Live Stats (link on the right). Go WheelKings!


Stats Leaders:

WheelKings 72 - Cannane 28 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists; Grogan 24 points, 10 rebounds; Hill 10 points, 4 assists; Meoli 6 points, 11 rebounds.

Rangers 85 - Del Tosos 34 points, 11 rebounds; Hodgens 22 points, 7 rebounds; Message 11 points, 5 assists.

Full stats at http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/17/05/03/45/382SP1wUTN5g/

Photo: Katie Hill took over the ball-handling duties for the WheelKings and had an outstanding game (photo courtesy of maxwell Illingworth - www.illiview.com)