In a must win weekend, the SmartSkill Seahawks Women and Seahawks Men made the trip to the Sunshine Coast for their match up against the USC RIP this past Saturday night.
The SmartSkill Seahawks Women kick-started the trip the to Sunny Coast off with a bang, with a convincing 84-40 win over the USC RIP Women’s side.
The SmartSkill Seahawks Women’s typical stingy defence was on full display, containing the home team to single digit 1st and 2nd quarters of 8 points apiece while pouring in 39 points of their own.
The second half didn’t see the defence loosen up, only allowing the RIP team a further 24 points for the game.
There were contributors all over the floor for the SmartSkill Seahawks Women side with Courtney Willemse (24 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals) Jessica Boundy (25 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals) Charli Reece (10 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks) as well as the ever-green Lauren Jansen with 8 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals.
Head Coach for the SmartSkill Seahawks Women Bradley Kann was proud of his team’s effort on the road.
“We knew this game was a danger game for us, particularly after sitting in the car for over 2 hours on the ride up, we had to be ready to go from the moment we stepped on the floor” said Kann.
“I was really proud of the way we defended individually and as a group, particularly the way we executed the defensive scout on some of their key players”
“Not only that, but our scoring output was probably the best of the season so to be able to put together a pretty complete game was a credit to the team”
Looking to clean sweep the night on the Sunshine Coast, the Seahawks Men let the USC RIP team get away from them early, getting behind 27-18 at the end of the first period but never looked completely out of the contest.
The second quarter saw the Seahawks close the gap, heading into half time only down 6 points.
Both teams struggled to put the ball in the hole in the 3rd quarter, with the Seahawks being contained to a single digit score of 9 whilst the USC RIP team couldn’t take advantage of their defensive effort, only piling in 13 of their own.
With travel and a tough 3 quarters completed, the Seahawks Men jut ran out of time down the stretch, eventually going down 77-63.
David Gurney was a shining light for the Seahawks, hitting 16 points at 50% along with 10 rebounds.
Rhys Martin and Amarco Doyle both finished on 11 points.
Head Coach for the Seahawks Men Jordan Mullan was disappointed by the result.
“We hung around for most of the game, but we just couldn’t keep the USC team off of the foul line” said Mullan.
“They shot twice as many foul shots as us (15 to Seahawks / 30 to USC RIP) and that was really the game”
“We matched them in the rebound count, turnovers were similar, but we just couldn’t get ourselves easy scores which wouldn’t allow us to put any scoreboard pressure on them”
“We have no time to waste, we have a huge home game against our cross-town rivals in gold Coast this weekend, so we will continue to look at our performance as a team and continue to get better”