By Kieren Vartuli

Forestville 65 | Woodville Warriors 56

After a sluggish first half by the fourth place Eagles, the visitors were able to claw their way to a nice victory against the 4-3 Warriors on Saturday night.

It was intense from the beginning with the Warriors able to get on the board first and extend their opening unanswered streak for a couple minutes. Forestville managed to score after almost 4 minutes of play through an easy two at the line.

It was a sloppy first half for the visiting side as they were inconsistent from the field and threw weak passes to allow for the steal. Despite this, Forestville hustled the Warriors on the glass as they were ripping down offensive rebounds with ease and Woodville weren’t able to capitalise on the turnovers to put some serious damage on the scoreboard. After fighting back throughout the second half of the first term, the Warriors were able to keep their early lead by 1-point leaving the score at 12-11 at the end of the first.

The Eagles came applied solid defence out of the break but the Warriors were still able to extend their lead with the assistance of some excellent basketball from Tavarsha Scott who finished with 18 points. The Warriors played well in transition and were able to be quite accurate from beyond the arc giving them a comfortable lead. The Eagles managed to get the margin back down to 4 points with some excellent play by Samantha Defrancesco who had 17 points for the game. A beautiful jump shot by Jessica Von Einem closed the half with a bucket and a 6 point warrior lead.

The Eagles came out fighting in the third as they further increased their defensive pressure and forced turnovers allowing them to gain a 5 point lead. Olivia Thompson had a stellar night posting her second highest scoring act of the season with 24 points. A completely different Forestville side became very forceful on the defensive end through double teams and presses that caused havoc for the Warriors.

After an excellent three quarters of basketball, the final term saw fast paced ball movement and gameplay and the Eagles were able to extend their lead to 9 as the final buzzer sounded.

The win will see the Eagles sit at second place behind the undefeated Norwood, while the loss for the Warriors sees them fall to fifth place behind the Rockets.

Round 9: Saturday, 7 May at 6:30pm

Forestville Eagles v Central Districts Lions @ Wayville

Woodville Warriors v Southern Tigers @ St Clair