Melbourne Shows Fighting Spirit To Post Second Win In A Row

The Age

Thursday January 15, 2009

NICK SHERIDAN

THE Melbourne Tigers appear to be hitting their straps in the run home to the finals, posting their second win on the trot by beating the Sydney Spirit by 20 points at the State Netball and Hockey Centre last night.

The 99-79 win marks a dream start to the Tigers' challenging week which includes four games and will wind up with away games against the Gold Coast Blaze tomorrow and the Wollongong Hawks on Saturday.

Excitement machine Ebi Ere was once again the star. After top-scoring with 32 points against Perth on Sunday night, he was on target last night with 25 points. David Barlow was also in fine form, scoring 20 points, with seven rebounds and three assists.

After a quiet start, the Tigers kicked into gear, with seven points inside a minute, five of them courtesy of Ere. But the Spirit responded with eight in just over a minute to take the lead.

From there the teams traded blows before an eight-to-four point run gave the Tigers a four-point advantage at the first break.

The Tigers extended their lead to six points in the second term.

The Spirit managed to get back on even terms and even took the lead from the Tigers through the hard work of hulking centre Matthew Knight, who posted eight points for the term, and Clint Reed (five points for the term). But Ere and Barlow had a few tricks left up their sleeves, Ere pulling out a massive tomahawk dunk and Barlow sinking a big shot from downtown to go into the break all tied up at 47 points a piece.

The Tigers broke the game wide open after half-time, outscoring the Spirit 52 to 32.

Re-recruited import Dave Thomas could prove to be the one worry for the winners, failing to take the court in the second half due to concern about the knee that has troubled him already this season. Coach Al Westover said he was hopeful that Thomas would be right to play tomorrow.

Spirit skipper Jason Smith played at his usual high standard, scoring 18 points, providing relentless attack on the ball and shooting beautifully from outside the arc, but he let himself down with some sloppy ball handling, finishing the game with six turnovers.

Sydney coach Rob Beveridge said his players did not stand up to the pressure. "The Tigers came out and physically manhandled us, put a lot of ball pressure, and we coughed the ball up," he said. "When you have 22 turnovers, they had 12 steals - I was really disappointed we didn't handle that pressure."

© 2009 The Age

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