James Murphy
MILLICENT Magic have been crowned as the 2022-23 Country Basketball League South West champions.
They travelled to Warrnambool on Saturday and claimed the title with a 19-point win over the Mount Gambier Lakers.
The two teams had been the benchmarks of the Basketball Victoria competition and it was a fitting conclusion to the season.
A close encounter was expected but Millicent played a hard defensive game and held the Lakers to 45 points – their lowest score of the season.
Mount Gambier’s defence was also solid, but the combination of Jasmin Howe and Emily Winter combined for 47 points as the Magic pushed out to a 64-45 win.
“Jazzy and Emily were exceptional at both ends of the court,” Millicent coach Damien Venn said.
“As a team we locked them down defensively.
“We knew that was always going to be the key to the game.
“Every player I had played their role and it didn’t matter who I had on the court.
“We just had one of those nights where everything went right for us.”
Venn was impressed with his team’s defensive efforts, as Sarah Ritter was the only Mount Gambier player to reach double figures.
The star shooter managed 16 but was forced to work for every point, with Alana Berkefeld prolific in defence.
“Alana did an outstanding job – she is way undersized and kept Sarah reasonably quiet in that first half when it mattered,” Venn said.
Millicent won the first two quarters and at half time held a 12-point lead.
“I was probably quietly confident at half time, but we sat down and spoke about it,” Venn said.
“It was only 12 points – a couple of threes and they were right back in it.
“We had spoken about the importance of having only done half the job.”
With that drilled into their minds, the Magic iced the game in the third quarter with a dominant 20-6 point effort.
Suddenly it was a 26-point ball game and Millicent held all the sway heading into the final stanza.
That buffer was more than sufficient in denying a turnaround and when the final buzzer sounded the Magic were re-crowned as champions.
“That was the best game we have played all year,” Venn said.
“We were pretty happy.”
The win was Millicent’s third consecutive championship, despite not competing in the league last season.
The Magic won the 2019, 2020 titles, while the 2021 season was cancelled due to Covid and the Magic did not enter a team in the 2022 competition.
Howe’s 24 points was the best for the match, while Winter shot 23 and also received the MVP award for the grand final.
On the other side of the game, Mount Gambier coach Bryan Green was proud of his girls despite the group’s disappointment.
“Things didn’t go the way we hoped, but it was a pretty good season on the whole, so I can’t really complain,” he said.
“We had a very young and inexperienced team.
“(Millicent) are probably the highest scoring team in the league.
“I thought we did a great job defensively against them to keep them to 64 but they kept us to 45.
“There were a lot of things that didn’t go right for us and a lot of good defensive plays for them.”
With the game still up for grabs at the main break, Green said a few changes were swung in an effort to restrict the Magic offensively.
“We decided to change defence hoping for a little bit of a turn around in the game,” he said.
“Unfortunately they came out and went bang, bang, bang and went from 12 up to about 23 up.”
The final quarter was a bit of a non-contest as Venn pulled some of his starting players off the court.
The Lakers won the term by seven points, but the damage was too severe and any chance of a comeback was off the table.
In the end it was simply Millicent’s night, with everything falling into place for the Magic.
