Tara Murray
A week is a long time in sport, just ask Wyndham’s Big V women’s state championship side.
After losing game one of their best-of-three semi final series against the McKinnon Cougars, Wyndham was going to have to make the grand final the hard way.
On Saturday night, Wyndham got back into the series with a 63-58 win and to send the series to game three.
With momentum, Wyndham was able to run away in the second half of game three to come away with a big 105-71 win and seal a grand final spot.
Interim coach Billy Akalo said to respond in the way they had was really amazing.
“We had two elimination games and to show that resilience is really amazing,” he said.
“I’m really proud of them. There’s more work to do and some things to improve on in the series against Bulleen.”
Akalo said they kept things business as usual between game one and game two. He said there were no alarm bells ringing.
“We wanted to do what is our trademark and execute our style of play,” he said.
“We took the experiences from the loss in game one to help us late in game situations.
“We executed it the way we wanted to do it, but it wasn’t a full four quarter performance.
“It was enough to get us across the line.”
Neither team was able to break the game open on Saturday night, with Wyndham doing enough to get the win.
Akalo said game three was going to be a battle of attrition. Scores were level at half time, before Wyndham blew the game open, including a 38-12 final quarter.
“We got our running game going and opened McKinnon up, they couldn’t keep up with us,” Akalo said.
“Amanda Paschal had 37 points. Last quarter we went berserk, it was a good way to end the series and have momentum heading into next week.”
Wyndham will face the Bulleen Boomers in the best-of-three grand final series. The Boomers beat the Sunbury Jets, 2-0 in the other semi final series.
Akalo said they were looking forward to it. Game one will be at Bulleen, while game two and if needed, game three will be at Werribee.
The two times we’ve played Bulleen it has been tough,” he said. “We haven’t looked at it too much.
“We know it’s going to be a tough final series. It will be matter of which team executes the better.
“One of the big points in series, it will be the battle of the players and who steps up.”
In massive news for the club, Paschal has re-signed for another two seasons.
The American in her first season at the club took out the golden hands award for the most assists in the championship division.
“Amanda has been incredibly consistent for us this season, not only dominating her own position on court, but also guiding and mentoring our younger players as they continually develop” senior women’s coach Gerard Hillier said.
“The decision to lock in Amanda for another two years is as much about providing strong leadership and direction for our young squad as it is about her ability to fill up the stat sheet, which speaks for itself.”
