March 29: St Laurence Geelong Supercats 150 (S. Myers 26, N. Herbert 26, B. Cox 21) defeated Albury/Wodonga Bandits 105 (A. Rice 31, R. Kersten 26, G. Inglakoon 14) at the Albury Sports Stadium.

March 28: Ballarat Miners 125 (B. Goodgame 27, A. McSwain 24, M. Toney-El 22) defeated St Laurence Geelong Supercats 100 (D. George 27, N. Herbert 17, B. Cox 16) at the Ballarat Minerdome.

It was the best of teams, it was the worst of teams, to paraphrase a line from Dickens, as the St Laurence Geelong Supercats split a tricky double header away over the weekend. Both ends of the basketball scale were experienced as Geelong was thumped by Ballarat on Friday night before doing and about face and handing out a thumping of their own to Albury/Wodonga on Saturday.

Guard Nick Owusu was unavailable for Geelong for the weekend due to a groin injury, which forced Coach Mark Leader to make some changes to his starting line up. Brad Bridgewater got his first chance to start for Geelong on Friday, while Shawn Myers got to start on Saturday. Meanwhile Braith Cox started both games at the point guard ahead of veteran Jarrod Leonard.

On Friday, Geelong kept with Ballarat for the first quarter and went to the first break just a single point down but the large home crowd helped Ballarat to the lead by 11 at the main break. A solid third quarter by Geelong saw the Supercats briefly take the lead before Ballarat recovered to a five point margin at the final break. Geelong needed a good final term but it was not to be as Ballarat outscored a tiring Supercats 37 to 17 to run away 125 to 100 winners.

By contrast, Saturday’s game in Albury could not have been more different. With a mix up over the starting time getting the Geelong adrenaline racing, the running game was back and the ball was passed through four or five sets of hands before a shot was attempted. This allowed Geelong to make better use of the ball and take higher percentage shots, leading to greater accuracy.

At the defensive end, the hands were active on every Bandits forward play and the score was contained. Geelong leapt out of the blocks to be ahead 37 to 16 at quarter time. More of the same in the second quarter saw Geelong ahead by 27 points at the half.

With a solid lead by the middle of the third quarter, Geelong head coach Mark Leader, allowed himself the luxury of giving some experience to his young bench players and Dane Bow did not disappoint shooting a three pointer from the corner and then repeating the dose twice over to record his highest score for the Supercats. Bow’s trio of threes helped Geelong to 39 points for the quarter to blow the lead out to that margin at the last change. The third quarter was marred, however, by a shoulder injury to Jamie Medved who took no further part in the game and may be in doubt for next weekend’s Canberra double after another knock to his troubled right shoulder.

In the last quarter, Geelong’s other youngster; Kris Van Parraren, joined the game and added three points to put every one of Geelong’s 12 players on the scorer’s sheet. Adding 36 points for the term the Supercats scored their highest total in a long while finishing with 150 points to the Bandits 105.

For Geelong, Nathan Herbert had 26 points, which was matched by Shawn Myers, who has found his form in his third game since rejoining the team. Meanwhile, Braith Cox continued his consistent form with another 21 point haul. NBL star, Andrew Rice, recorded the top score of 31 for Albury/Wodonga.

The Supercats are on the road again in Canberra next weekend, this time taking on the Canberra Gunners and the Australian Institute of Sport. The Supercats will return home on Friday 11th April for the return clash against Ballarat.