By JARROD POTTER
USUALLY a team monstered 37-63 off the boards will also be beaten significantly on the scoreboard, but Pakenham is constantly proving this season it isn’t a usual basketball team.
Heading to Mornington in a first versus third encounter – the fates colluded with the Warriors to register an 84-74 win and keep its top of the table status.
Needing to negate the impact of Breakers’ star forward Daniel Christian, Pakenham coach Ryan Rogers set his best defender – Jay Richardson – a monumental task. Richardson was able to restrict Christian to 17 points and 13 rebounds and force him from the court in foul trouble in the third quarter.
Restricting Christian is an effort in itself, but Richardson was practically bedridden all week with the flu and still negated the Mornington monster in tandem with Daniel Stow.
“Jay hasn’t trained all week – he’s been in bed with the flu,” Rogers said.
“I knew if he was ready to play… that was his matchup as soon as I could get him in there – he always looks forward to taking on ‘marquee bigs’ and Christian… I’d put in the top three in the league.”
Pakenham seized its shooting opportunities going at a Herculean 58 per cent from the first half as the Breakers failed to respond in kind.
High tempo basketball suited the Warriors perfectly – running rings around the Breakers in a 29-16 point opening quarter – with an impressive 0-6 turnover count getting the break for Pakenham.
The non-stop grind wore down the Breakers – eventually conceding a 20-point lead before getting some junk-time points in the last term, brought a little respectability to the final tally.
The Warriors’ offensive guns Jeff Reid (22 points, seven rebounds), James Topp (20 points, eight rebounds, four steals) and Jay Ferriere (16 points, six rebounds, six assists) continued to push for All Star honours.
Stow (eight points) also hit a pair of clutch threes to push the margin to 21 in Pakenham’s favour early in the third – effectively breaking the Breakers’ chances of victory.
The rebound count disparity worried Rogers, but he was happy with the win.
“It’s an area we’ve probably struggled on all across the season,” Rogers said.
“I was particularly happy in the early parts of the fourth that we tidied that up a bit and we got some really key rebounds. Overall it’s an area we need to improve on.”
Impressing the coach most of all was Ferriere – with the Manhattanville alumni carving up Mornington in all facets.
“Ferriere (16 points, six rebounds and assists) had a really complete game and managed the troops well… probably in his best three games for the year,” Rogers said.
First place Pakenham has earned a week off with the Queen’s Birthday weekend and will resume next Saturday against Western Port Steelers from 5pm at Cardinia Life.
