Stingrays show ‘lot of ticker’ to claim win

CORIO BAY Stingrays coach Paul Hutchison has commended his team’s endeavour after they claimed their second win of the year yesterday.

Having gone down by 29 points on Saturday against Eltham Wildcats, the Stingrays regrouped in time to come out firing against Werribee Devils and cause an upset on their home court.

Hutchison said it was pleasing to see Corio Bay taste success after such a challenging season. “It’s been a long time between drinks but it was excellent,” Hutchison said.

“They showed a lot of ticker because we were down by 10 points at three-quarter time.

“We were playing well but we weren’t containing players and they were getting to the foul line a little easy.

“Myself and the assistants broke it down and said to just get three stops at the start of the quarter and we’ll get back into the game and we got three in a row and … next minute we were only down by two so the boys fed off that energy and came home in the stretch, so it was really pleasing.”

Hutchison reserved special praise for Chris Lynch and debutant Aaron Ruiz for their efforts in yesterday’s win, which was Corio Bay’s first since March.

“Chris Lynch in particular, to get a double-double, he is 38 years old and he goes and gets me 31 points and 11 rebounds,” he said. “Dane Bow had 16 points but his defence was probably the best I’ve seen it and Michael Rebula is just a great leader.

“Young Aaron Ruiz came in from the youth league and was huge, he showed great intensity and played on their import and his influence down the stretch was key to us getting the victory.”