Words and image courtesy of freelance Sports Media Consultant James O'Donohue

The Chambers Franklyn Joondalup City Wolves men’s team have secured second place on the State Basketball League ladder with a hard fought 102-89 victory over the Rockingham Flames at HBF Arena on Saturday night in front of x629 fans.

With only one regular season round remaining, the win guarantees the Wolves will enter the playoffs as the second seed regardless of what happens in the final round this weekend.  

Explosive American duo Jalen Billups and Brian Sullivan starred for the Wolves, with the pair setting up the win with a superb shooting performance.

Billups led the way with 32 points on 13-of-16 shooting, including 3-of-4 from beyond the three-point line, while Sullivan knocked down six triples of his own en-route to 30 points, his highest tally for the Wolves this season.  

“We got them here for this end of the season” said Wolves Head Coach Ben Ettridge of his two imports. “They’re really starting to hit their straps now which is very pleasing.”

The Flames arrived in Joondalup with a talented roster featuring two NBL players, including Illawarra Hawks Captain Kevin White and Perth Wildcat and former Wolfpack Championship player Greg Hire, who was returning for his first game in Joondalup since switching to the Flames last season.  

Both teams came out firing in an ultra-competitive and see-sawing first half, and the crowd were quick to get stuck into Hire, jubilantly cheering with each shot he missed.

The contest was tight and tense for the entire first half. Both teams were playing with relentless defensive energy, and it was only a Brian Sullivan three-pointer at the half-time buzzer which gave the home team a 55-54 lead.

It remained close in the third quarter, but the Wolves got the stops they needed in the fourth quarter, and hit important baskets when it mattered most to take control and pull away late for the 13-point victory.

Aside from Billups and Sullivan, the Wolves got solid production from Robbie Huntington with 15 points and eight rebounds, while Trian Iliadis and Captain Seb Salinas both provided extra scoring spark at key moments, finishing with 11 and 9 points respectively.

The Flames were led by recent signing Sunday Dech who had a team-high 22 points, while Hire filled the stat sheet with 20 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists, despite appearing quite frustrated for much of the evening.

The Wolves victory ends a two-game losing streak at HBF Arena following close losses to Geraldton and Perry Lakes, and coach Ettridge said it was a matter of making their shots down-the-stretch. 

“Look we’re back on that winning streak which is where we should be and I guess the difference is those couple of games that went down to the wire, we didn’t quite execute. We’d got the right shots and didn’t make them, but tonight those guys in the same spots made those shots.” Ettridge said,

“We want this to be a fortress, and we’d lost our last two games on our home court and we hadn’t done that for a very long time, so to get that mentality back, that winning feeling, is great.

“The boys are up and about and we’ve got one game left to get into the business end of the season" Ettridge concluded.

Earlier in the evening, the Wolves women’s team were beaten by Rockingham 87-75 in what was their final home game of the 2018 season.

It was a close contest for most of the game and the Wolves were leading 60-58 at three-quarter time, but the third placed Rockingham had more answers in the fourth quarter and closed out the game.

Amy Kidner had a strong game for Joondalup, her season best with 21 points, while American Kourteney Zadina had 18. Chelsea Belcher and Nikita Martin had 12 each.

For the Flames, the damage was done by their two imports. Taneisha Harrison top scored with 25 points and D’Lesha Lloyd had 24.

Wolves Captain Shani Amos has been on the sideline assisting with coaching in the second half of the season due to her pregnancy, and said she was proud of her team for taking it up to one of the league’s top teams.

“They’ve just got some guns.” Amos said.

 “It’s not that you can’t compete with that, but they’ve got some serious firepower when they needed it, and they had other girls knock down threes and stuff like that. So I think we did well to stick with them. They’re third on the ladder and we’re 11^th, so to push them that far it was good on our part.” Amos concluded. 

Amos also reflected on the season as a whole and said she’s proud of the development from the Wolves younger players who have stepped up in the absence of experience.

“We’ve had a few people down, with me especially as the point guard and captain. So we had 16-year old kids leading on the floor, we had 15-year old Olivia come out and hit a game-tying shot to take us to overtime.

There’s stuff like that which doesn’t happen in normal seasons and especially at this club we normally run with our studs and a few bench, but this was really a group effort and it’ll be invaluable to the club moving forward.” Amos said.

The Wolves women play their final game of the season in Mandurah on Saturday night against the Magic.