Tara Murray
Wyndham will use the back part of the Big V women’s championship season to tinker with things in the lead up to finals.
Last season’s champions are undefeated this season, having continued to build on the work from last year.
Now with another finals series in its focus, coach Gerard Hillier said they had put themselves in a position to be able to work on a number of things.
“It’s about tightening up little bits and pieces,” he said. “We spoke about it in the pre-season, do the work early in the season and have more flexibility in the back half of the year and we’ve been able to do that.
“Addison Baars is nearly qualified, she’s another under-18. We’ve played more young kids than we expected, which is due to the great work the seniors did in the first half of the season.”
One of the areas Wyndham is aiming to focus on is playing without star Dyani Ananiev. Ananiev has headed to college in America and won’t play any further part this season.
Hillier said they had been preparing for this to happen for all season.
“We played two tough games when we were getting used to playing with Dyani, which is a challenge for us,” he said.
“Sunbury we expected it to be a close game, I’ve been watching them the last month or so and they’ve been getting better.
“We’ll get better for those games. We’re starting to take shape without her.”
Hillier said they had looked to reduce Ananiev’s minutes for about six weeks beforehand to the side wasn’t as reliant on her producing big numbers.
Holly Dolny, Lauren Jones and Aleks Connolly are among those whose minutes have increased.
Hillier said Connolly, who was part of the under-18 Vic Country side this year, was really good in their last two matches.
Zoe Zwerling is set to return as well after a month out with illness, in another boost for Wyndham.
Wyndham had the bye on the weekend. This week they face the Bulleen Boomers in a top of the table clash.
Hillier said it would be a good test of where they are at with their new looking line up.
Wyndham’s men were still in action on Sunday, as the club hosted a Big Freeze round to raise money for motor neurone disease research.
Wyndham jumped out of the blocks against Bellarine Storm, leading by 14 points at quarter time.
The margin was increased to 24 points at half time and 31 at the last break.
Wyndham didn’t take the foot off the pedal finishing off strong to seal a 121-74 win.
All nine players scored with seven of them scoring double figures, led by Maurice Howard with 26 points.
Like the women, Wyndham is on top. Wyndham is one of three teams equal on wins, along with the Hume City Broncos and Sunbury Jets.
