Final Score:

Woodville-62

North Adelaide-85

 

The 2017 Premier League season got underway this past weekend and 2 of the teams are playing with much to prove this season. These two teams are the Woodville Warriors and North Adelaide Rockets.

 

It was a hard night at the office for Coach Whitmore and his Warrior men as they not only remained scoreless until 6:58 but also found themselves on the wrong side of a 12-2 score line. The Warriors were struggling during the first term on both ends of the hardwood while North Adelaide were the quite the opposite. With North Adelaide’s ball movement, they were able to continue to capitalise on their offensive end from both the field and charity stripe. North Adelaide import Alex Starling made his presence known early by attaining a steal and finishing with a fast-break dunk. Despite having a poor opening quarter, the Warriors found themselves trailing by 8-points with plenty of the opener remaining.

 

With some poor decisions on Woodville’s behalf coming out of the first break, North Adelaide were able to continue to build on their lead. While Woodville’s shooting woes continued into the 2^nd term (only scoring 3-points at the 5 minute mark) they had a bright moment after sharpshooter Darren Ng made his defender stumble and then buried the triple. This triple cut the margin down to 13-points with over a half remaining. Alex Starling continued his strong performance with another steal and slam much like the first early in the game with North Adelaide’s heavy quarter, the Rockets had a commanding lead of 17-points (30-47) heading into halftime.

 

Coming out of halftime, the Warriors were playing harder and appeared to play with more urgency which would have helped spark a comeback. Despite this urgency, the Warrior men were still down by 19. Continuing with their faster gameplay, Woodville were pushing the ball up and around the court faster than North Adelaide which may be beneficial in upcoming fixtures. Alex Starling continued his strong Rocket debut by getting to the line time and time again which helped him finish with 32-points. Not only was he a force on the offensive end this evening, but also defensively as he attained 4 steals and pulled down 19-Rebounds (16 defensive). As the 3^rd quarter siren sounded, North Adelaide were flying as they were ahead by 20-points with 1-quarter to go.

The final quarter was much of the same for Woodville as they were struggling from the field like most of the night. While on the contrary, the Rockets kept their foot on the accelerator and finished the game out strong. The Rockets were just too strong defensively for the Warriors and was demonstrated late in the game by their half court press.  Despite their problems, the Warriors finished out the final minutes strong although it was too late as Luke Mapunda and his Rocket men took their first win of the season in a dominant fashion.

 

Notable performances:

Woodville:

Darren Ng 8-points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists

Luke Stanbridge 11-points

 

North Adelaide:

Alex Starling 32-points (66% shooting), 19 rebounds

Darcy Aistrope 13-points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists