Sport
1 November, 2021
Final count down
HIGH scoring duo Brennan Collis and Ricaydan Wason started Thursday nights Mareeba basketball match-up for Buckets by discarding Ballers’ defence like rag dolls.
Baller Tyson Tatti, typically no rag doll, tasted two cheap fouls within milliseconds of the game commencing and was summoned to the bench for resetting.
Relative newcomer, Andrew Sneath, was having his best game since transitioning from soccer.
His intensity coupled with fellow Buckets’ players slowed Tatti when he returned in the second term, however Tatti wreaked of unfinished business.
At one stage the Buckets got out to a 24-point lead and Ballers could not find hidey-holes anywhere in the stadium.
The second half provided a momentum shift as Ethan Cummings, Peter Lipede and centre Luke Wainwright hustled to contain the Buckets break.
Tatti, Dean Gallo and Mizhar Saba rallied offensively, and the group returned to the contest, Saba was playing his new role of settler, picking and choosing when to score.
Then it all went crazy as push came to shove and Brennan Collis came out of it poorly with a contact foul which could have easily been decreed an unsportsmanlike foul.
It was closely followed by a technical foul which was passed on to his captain Ben Washington, proving costly, as it led to him sitting out crucial minutes in the fourth quarter.
The gap closed, then closed some more, still Wason held his nerve offensively, making some fantastic baskets against Tatti who was on a three-foul leash in the second half.
In bizarre circumstances, the final 2.8 seconds was replayed due to a problem with the score bench, and it lasted at least 7 seconds during the repeat by Greenwich Mean Time.
Wason and Kyll Wright had low percentage looks at the hoop, without experiencing ecstasy, a thriller, Ballers victorious, 75 to 74.
In the second game, Stingrays again failed to field a full squad with the Herberton youngsters and Jerome Gully no-shows.
Conditioned from playing at a higher standard in the Aron Baines era, Red Devils power forward, Andy Harris, came in and went straight home, having no interest in make-believe
