Men’s Norwood Flames vs Sturt Sabres
The Men’s team is coming into this game 1-1 and looking to get back into the win column in game 3 against the undefeated Sturt Sabres. Sturt has had a great start to the season with two big wins against Forestville and North Adelaide. The boys are going to have to lock in defensively to beat Sturt’s blistering hot offence.
The game opened with a quick slam for Issac Miller-Jose and a tip-in for Jack Stanwix gave Norwood a quick 4-point lead. Sturt picked up their offence and scored 9 quick points. From this point, the Flames locked in defensively and forced tough possessions for the Sabres. This gave us momentum heading the other way, waking up our offence, highlighted by the stellar 3-point shooting by Issac Miller-Jose and Darcy McNamara. The first quarter ended, with Norwood up, 19-11.
The hot shooting from the first quarter carried into the second, Norwood ending up 4-6 from 3-point land in the quarter. The Sabres found their offensive rhythm early in the quarter cutting the lead to 2 and off some hot shooting. Norwood regained control of the tempo, allowing us to control the flow of the game and ice their shooters. This combined with tough defensive intensity saw Norwood going into half-time leading 51-42.
Sturt opened the second half on a 7-0 run before Blake Morrow and Issac Miller-Jose connected on an electric alley-oop slam, sparking a 6-0 run for the Flames. The Sabres weren’t disparaged by the run and kept their offence free-flowing, creating a lot of easy opportunities. Throughout the quarter the Sabres were consistent and precise on the offensive end, executing at a high level and ensuring that the lead was slowly breaking down. Eventually, the lead was no more and the Sabres entered the last period up by 1, 67-68.
Sturt kept riding their momentum into the fourth, an 8-0 run forcing a quick timeout for coach Tim Odell. The timeout did halt the Sabre’s momentum, unfortunately, Norwood’s offence couldn’t ignite and both teams struggled to score against tough defences for a few minutes. The driving lanes eventually opened up for Sturt and they were able to expand their lead ending up taking the win over the Flames 77-92.
