Herbert cracks the 6000-point mark
THE Geelong Supercats have celebrated a milestone game for evergreen scorer Nathan Herbert, defeating Kilsyth by 17 points, 79-62, yesterday at the Arena.
Herbert scored 14 points, clocking up his 6000th point for the Supercats as the region’s elite outfit reversed the result of Friday’s heavy loss to regional arch-rival, and cross-conference leader, Ballarat, 107-84.
“He currently sits on 6010, it’s a tremendous effort for a very hard-working player,” coach Leon O’Neill said postgame.
“Night in, night out, he’s one of our best and to score 6000 points is phenomenal.
“I know he’s been at it a long time, but it’s a record that will be very hard to break and hopefully he’s got a few more left in him yet.”
Geelong led by two points at quarter-time, and five at the half, but took until the last quarter to break the shackles, leading to the comfortable 17point margin.
“We had a game plan coming in and I thought we did a pretty good job, defensively sticking to that game plan and they’re severely undermanned, losing a quality player last night in Daniel Dillon,” O’Neill said.
“But we did a good job of guarding people the way we wanted to guard them and just wore them down a little bit.
“They had to play last night (Saturday) and we had that extra day’s rest and that was helpful, it’s a win and we need a win at this stage of the season and we’ll certainly take it.”
Herbert’s 14 points followed his 18 against Ballarat, while DeMarcus Gatlin and Ma’alo Hicks enjoyed 36-point and 27-point weekends.
Geelong was beaten on the glass by one rebound, 44-43, but clearly held the edge in points-in-the-paint, 40-30.
The Cobras turned the ball over 26 times to the Supercats’ 20; a statistic that proved telling in the final result.
“That sets us up now for a finals run and makes it really tough for Kilysth to feature in the finals, which is good for us, we need to make it as hard for as many teams as we can and now we’ve got to get ready to focus on Melbourne coming into next week,” O’Neill said.
“The Melbourne Tigers are on a run; they’ve won their last couple and we’re going to need to be better than we were today if we’re going to come away with a win.”