THE Stirling Senators hosted the Joondalup Wolves at Warwick Stadium on Friday night with the Men sending a message that they are right in the hunt for an SBL championship in 2016 while the Women came up short against the league-leading Lady Wolfpack.

The Women's clash saw the Wolves enter The Senate needing to win to maintain top spot and they got off to a fast start capitalising on some poor Stirling turnovers, and then getting on the offensive glass and making open shots.

They opened up a dominant early lead and went on to win 76-58.

Then in the Men's contest, it was the Senators who started strongly and with Kyle Lindbergh and Austin Bruton on fire in the first half, and Ashley Litterick providing great hustle off the bench, they led by 20 at the main break.

The Wolfpack were always going to fight back and it was the returning Trian Iliadis (33 points) who sparked that in the third quarter in his 100th appearance. He simply could not miss from beyond the arc for a stretch and also did well getting to the rim.

That set up a thrilling finish but Stirling's defence led by Cody Ellis was strong and the Senators were able to turn around the result against the Wolves from HBF Arena to come away with the 100-91 victory to have now won five straight to improve to 14-6 and be a real chance of a top two spot.

The Wolves lost their second straight Friday night match with the defending champions leaving Warwick Stadium far from happy with how the game panned out down the stretch. They have a chance to rebound like they did last weekend, this time against the Goldfields Giants.

It was a night to savour for the Senators, though, and coach Mike Ellis couldn’t have been more glowing in praise of the way his team opened up what proved to be a match-winning lead in the first half, and held on.

"That first half was fantastic. Really it was almost faultless. We were able to put some scoreboard pressure on them which they are not used to having. To me our defence was the key. Our defence was as strong as anything," Ellis said.

"Trian caught fire in the third quarter and he was just unconscious. He was unstoppable and when he gets like that there's not much you can do, you just have to try and weather it. What was pleasing for me was that whilst he was doing that, we kept ticking our score along.

"If we weren’t scoring and he was doing that, then their run gets even worse but we kept ticking the scoreboard along. And I didn’t think Cody had a particularly good game offensively, he was great defensively and did a great job on Seb.

"But we had other guys step up which is what you want. We're not a team that relies on one person like a few teams in the league do who have a huge scorer. We spread it amongst a lot of guys and that makes us hard to guard."

While Cody Ellis (11 points, six assists, five rebounds, three steals), AJ Majstrovich (16 points, 12 boards, four assists, three steals) and Corban Wroe (eight points, four assists) made strong contributions, what was most pleasing for Mike Ellis was the other players who stood up.

Lindbergh was unstoppable in the first half and finished with 31 points while Austin Bruton was dynamic off the bench in the first half, and then when it counted down the stretch to finish with 19. The pair combined to shot 16-of-25 from the field and 7-of-12 from three.

Teenagers Jayden Coburn and Ashley Litterick both performed well against the defending champs with Coburn bouncing back from a shaky start and Litterick's work inside against Rob Huntington and Kevin Davis was crucial and even included a big early slam on the former.

"Ash is another young kid. He is only 19 and he was massive on the glass for us and he's really developing nicely. Jayden has been developing well and again he's an 18-year-old boy. They've been given an opportunity and they are grabbing it with both hands," he said.

"Kyle has just been solid every single week. He scored 31 and that's fantastic and his season high, but with him you know what you are going to get. You are going to get a great defender, you are going to get a great rebounder and someone who will score anywhere between 15 to 20 and you can't ask for more than that.

"He is a great guy and fits in beautifully with the rest of the guys. I don’t want to bring in someone who is going to dominate the play because what happens is if that person has a bad game your team stops.

"We want everyone to share the rock and the wealth, and that happened which is why we were able to win this game. We were fortunate enough that our weapons just happened to be better than their weapons on this occasion."

Ellis now hopes that the win over the Wolfpack gives his largely young group the confidence that they are among the championship contenders as they embark a stretch of games against the Hawks, Eagles, Cougars, Flames and East Perth again.

"The biggest thing for us is that with the exception of three guys who you would call veterans, the rest of the group is really young. For me it has just been a constant build with these guys to get them to have the confidence that they can actually play with anybody in the league," Ellis said.

"For me that really helped in this game and gives them the belief that they can play with these guys. That's the championship side with another import added. I know they have Hire to come in, but that was the team that won it last year and they've added another import in Evans.

"For us to go out and play the way we did, it was great for the guys to get a bit of belief in themselves. We are about the mark and I still think we've got room for improvement. I'm just really pleased with the way the guys are working and buying into what we do. The most pleasing part is they are a great bunch of guys and fun to coach, and frustrating at times but mostly fun."

Earlier in the Women's contest, Senators coach Glenn Clarke was pleased that his team continued to fight against the top of the table Wolves, but giving up an early lead was always going to make it tough with the Wolfpack leading 28-12 after one.

They couldn’t make enough inroads and while they did well to force Joondalup into 21 turnovers, they coughed up 24 themselves and it was the Wolves led by Shani Amos (10 points, five assists, four rebounds, two steals) and Klara Wischer (23 points, nine boards) who made them pay.

"We know Wanneroo are a very confident team so we wanted to go after them, and score, score and score. To do that you have to dig in harder. The girls did dig in pretty hard but we just have to take care of the ball better because they make you pay," Clarke said.

"It's just more about digging in and staying with them. With teams like this, if you make three or four mistakes they will score off that and those points off turnovers is what's going to kill you.

"It can be 10-all and before you know it you have three turnovers and it's 16-10 and they have the momentum. It's all about digging it."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Deprimo Photography