By Jonty Ralphsmith
Cal McNiff’s class shone through for the GYG Pakenham Warriors Youth Men, which were comfortable winners 109-77.
After having the slight edge for much of the first half, despite early foul trouble, Pakenham opened up a big lead in the third stanza.
The Warriors won that 33-13, with that period of play setting the blueprint for their basketball.
Following a strong preseason, Luke Rawiri led the way in the third quarter, scoring eight of his 17 points to go with three offensive rebounds as he showed his strength around the rim.
In his second year back playing basketball, Rawiri is a player the Warriors see as taking a big step forward on-court this year provided he stays injury-free, having played practice matches for the men’s side and put up big numbers in the County Basketball League (CBL).
Kaleb Beveridge’s size and spring also came to the fore after halftime, as he landed a dunk midway through the third quarter, among his 11 points, which went with nine rebounds.
The lead swelled to 30 points at three-quarter-time with coach Braden Venning highlighting his team’s hustle to limit Southern Peninsula’s scoring which complemented their firepower upfront.
Pakky generated 29 opposition turnovers while giving it up just nine times.
“We want to establish our identity as a defensive team first so to keep them to 13 points for an entire quarter was fantastic,” Venning said.
“We’ve just got to bring the pressure, live off deflections and run them out because once we get in transition, I don’t think anyone will be able to stop us.
“We’ve been scrimmaging against the men a lot and they bully us so adjusting to that and bringing it into our own game has been really good.
“We want to be the number one rated defence throughout the league so we’ve done a lot of work on fine tuning and tweaking our defensive positioning so I have put a lot of work into that.”
Set to play a prominent role for the men’s side this season, McNiff’s quality was on show upfront as he pierced the Southern Peninsula defence, scoring 20 points off the bench and he was a menace off the board and in the scrimmage, with seven rebounds and three steals.
“He’s a guy you can plug and play and you know will be effective – if you put the ball in his hands, things will happen,” Venning said.
“What a talent to have him coming off the bench, to have him come in and play against teams’ second units. I’ve got 10 guys who could easily start for me.”
Youth League staple Jarred Small’s run and gun was another component of the victory, with his game typifying his team’s dash in transition.
Venning’s side has Mornington at 2pm, Sunday at Cardinia Life, with the visitors’ reigning All-Star Five player Matthew Wolfe the player to stop after he combined 33 points with 17 rebounds and four blocks in his team’s first-up win over Gippsland.
