Tara Murray
Wyndham’s title defence is over in the Big V men’s state championship division after being knocked out in straight sets.
Wyndham claimed the minor premiership after some important wins late in the season against finals contenders, but wasn’t able to continue the same form in the finals.
After having the first week off, Wyndham then suffered a loss to the Hume City Broncos to send it into a preliminary final.
Wyndham was back at home on Saturday night for the preliminary final against the McKinnon Cougars, losing 100-96
Coach Lucas Allen said they were bitterly disappointed for their season to end like that.
“It’s really disappointing for the season to abruptly finish like that,” he said. “I said to the guys after the game you can look at one game or one quarter, but it’s been a pattern of play.
“It’s a accumulation of habits and we were disappointing in certain areas and it come to head and cost us come finals.”
Allen said they had seem some of those habits creep in during the season, but hadn’t been able to rectify them.
On Saturday night, Cougars jumped out of the blocks and left Wyndham and its home crowd stunned, leading by 10 points.
Wyndham got its offence going in the second quarter to reduce the margin to just two points at half time.
The momentum swings continued in the second half with the Cougars again taking control of the game.
They managed to outscore Wyndham, 34-23, to have one hand in the grand final with a 13 point lead heading into the final quarter.
The lead got out to 18 points early in the last quarter, with the side still in control with three minutes to go with an 11 point lead.
Wyndham started to come hard late, with the margin reduced to just four points with 38 seconds remaining.
It would be as close as it got, with the Cougars holding on to win.
Most of the statistics between the two sides were even but the Cougars had nine more field goal attempts.
Wyndham shot a massive 29 free throws, compared to the Cougars’ 11 but it didn’t make a difference.
Kavione Green top scored with 25 points and also had 12 boards, while Maurice Howard had 24 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Allen said the club’s thoughts were with McKinnon’s Nathan Davis, who suffered a serious knee injury in the game.
Having not being able to defend their title, Allen said they hadn’t been able to live up to their expectations.
“It’s something I’ve been mulling over the last couple of days,” he said. “It’s a failure not winning the championship. It shows where the program is now with the standard and expectation, that it’s failure or bust.”
