For a season that has thrown up varying levels of adversity, the absence of Chantel Horvat and the opposition’s impressive shooting proved challenges too significant for the Hoop City Geelong United Supercats to overcome at Geelong Arena on Saturday night.
The Supercats’ bold bid for a first NBL1 South title was ended at the preliminary final stage by Waverley, with the Falcons outscoring the home team in each period to claim an 85-74 victory and book a meeting with the unbeaten Bendigo in the Conference Final.
Despite the loss, coach Matthew Paton is exceptionally proud of his team’s season.
“This season’s been full of instances where the team has faced adversity above and beyond what you would normally expect to go through in a season,” he said.
“They’ve never backed away at all, and they’ve always done their best to represent the club with everything that they have.
“I think tonight was one of those where what we needed to get done and what we were capable of on the night was just that little bit different.
A knee issue forced Horvat (20.2 points and 11.1) rebounds to watch the contest from the bench, with the Opal’s presence missed at both ends of the floor.
“We knew early on that Chantel was going to be absent from the game, so we were able to adjust our gameplan through the week,” Paton said.
“But, when you lose a player of Chantel’s capabilities from a team at this end of the season in games where you need your full complement up-and-firing, it would have made an impact on our ability to stretch them defensively.
“As well as allow us some extra rotations and our post players Monica (Okoye) and Ella (Tofaeono) that little extra bit of rest.
“The girls adapted to the rotations we had, and I was happy with that.”
Okoye and Tofaeono found foul trouble, which further impacted Paton’s ability to rotate his roster as he would have liked.
“We found ourselves on the receiving end of quite a significant number of fouls tonight,” he said.
“I think Waverley did a good job of initiating a very finals-worthy level of physicality and adapted to it.
“From our point of view, Ella and Monica were probably inhibited from playing their naturally aggressive and physical styles of game that fans have enjoyed watching all year.
“They still managed to contribute in their own way, and some other players had to play some slightly different roles due to that foul trouble.”
Agnieszka Skobel paced Geelong United’s scoring with 18 points while also grabbing six steals, co-captain Sarah Elsworthy’s All-Star-worthy season finished with 16 points, eight rebounds and five assists, Tofaeono recorded a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double, and Eve Braslis contributed 14 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
“When you get a chance to look at the box score and calm down from the emotion of the result, we had a fairly even contribution statistically,” Paton said.
Rebecca Cole (23 points, seven assists, three rebounds, three steals), Carley Ernst (21 points, ten rebounds, three assists), Sophia Locandro (17 points on 75 per cent shooting), Maddi Utti (17 points, eight rebounds) did the bulk of the damage for Waverley.
The Falcons shot the ball at 49.2 per cent compared to the Supercats’ 39.2,
“We took more shots than they did … (we) had our chances,” Paton said.
“But their capability to knock down shots, shoot at a higher percentage, and play more efficiently offensively was probably where we were found wanting and where they got the advantage over us.
“It’s hard to get out and run if you’re taking the ball out of the net, and we found ourselves doing that a fair bit tonight.”
