April 18: St Laurence Geelong Supercats 113 (S. Myers 31, N. Herbert 24, B. Cox 17) defeated Nunawading Spectres 105 (P. Flynn 21, B. Biwer 17, M. Thorp 14) at the Geelong Arena.

April 19: Southern District Spartans 150 (A. Gibson 31, C. Goulding 31, J. Brown 24) defeated St Laurence Geelong Supercats 132 (N. Herbert 42, D. George 22, S. Myers 19) at Carina Stadium, Brisbane.

This St Laurence Geelong Supercats have played their fourth double header in as many weeks and managed to get away with one win and one loss. This weekend’s double was arguably the toughest to date facing the much improved Nunawading Spectres at home on Friday before having to make the competition’s longest road trip to tackle Brisbane’s Southern District Spartans on Saturday.

In Brisbane on Saturday the Supercats went into the match without in form guard Braith Cox, who was unable to make the trip for family reasons, and opened an 11 to 4 lead before the home side recovered to tie the scores at quarter time at 29 each. In a remarkable second quarter Geelong added 35 points to Southern Districts 43 as the home side opened up an 8 point lead.

The Spartans’ NBL quartet of Chris Goulding, Adam Gibson, Justin Brown and Brad Williamson combined to add another 39 points in the third quarter to outscore Geelong by 11 and open up a match winning 19 point lead by the last change. Geelong played through their fatigue and won the last quarter 40 to 39 on the back of some phenomenal shooting by Nathan Herbert but it was too little, too late as the Spartans won the high scoring match 150 to 132.

Nathan Herbert led all scorers with 42 points including 7 three pointers. Daniel George shot 22 and Shawn Myers rounded out a solid weekend with a 19 point haul. Goulding and Gibson shared the honours for the home side with 31 points each.

On Friday night the Nunawading Spectres, who are without doubt the tallest team in the league, came to the Arena with no less than six players in excess of 200 cm tall. This was always going to be a challenge for the Supercats who would need their regular up tempo game on song to run the visitors off their feet.

The first quarter ebbed and flowed with both teams sounding each other’s defence out, The Supercats held a narrow 25 to 23 point advantage at the first break. By the half, neither team had been able to get away to a good break as they traded basket for basket. The Supercats did, however manager to double their advantage to four points.

Head coach Mark Leader’s words of wisdom during the break must have inspired Geelong as they came out and held their opponents scoreless for the first four minutes, while adding on ten points of their own. The Spectres’ 201 cm forward Paul Flynn then broke the drought but Nathan Herbert and Shawn Myers for Geelong continued to pile on the points to extend the margin to 22 points before a late recovery saw Nunawading bring the gap back to 14 points at the last change.

At the start of the last quarter, Flynn and veteran Michael Thorp hit some much needed three pointers to the visitors and the margin was back to 8 points after four minutes of play. The tenacious Nunawading side kept chipping away at Geelong’s lead as the Arena crowd tried to lift the home side. With just three minutes to play, Nunawading had narrowed the margin to just 2 points and it looked like the Supercats might face an upset before a Jordan Hill three pointer steadied the ship. With time running out, the Spectres were forced to foul the Supercats to regain possession and Geelong capitalised on the free throws to win their sixth game in a row 113 to 105.

Myers starred for Geelong with 31 points and was ably supported by Herbert with 24 while Braith Cox again proved his consistency with 17. Flynn top scored for the visitors with 21 while 42 year old veteran Dave Biwer had 17.

The Supercats will return home to face yet another double header next weekend hosting Canberra on Saturday night and then travelling to Bendigo next Sunday afternoon.