NC women keep up winning streak
North Canterbury pulled away strongly in the fourth quarter against Pioneer in the Women’s Premier basketball clash at Cowles Stadium on Saturday.
Winning comfortably 89-44 and maintaining its unbeaten 4-0 run in this seasons competition.
Pioneer had some strength with former Wildcats Tessa Burry (22), her sister Maja and Rosanna Katene. They lacked cohesion but will be a force to reckon with as the season progresses further.
North Canterbury are the defending champion from last season and will meet defending Patron’s trophy champion and arch rival Lincoln University this Saturday at the Middleton Grange complex in what will be the Patron’s trophy final. Both sides are unbeaten but were due to clash in a first round catch-up game on Monday while North Canterbury also had bottom- ofthe-table Halswell to play.
This Saturday’s encounter also doubles up as the first round of the championship and Patron’s trophy final with points carrying over from the first round, a break in tradition.
In Men’s Premier action, University of Canterbury thumped Checkers 100-73 to remain unbeaten and will meet Gators in the 1 v 2 Hoben trophy final leaving four teams tied for second place on nine points with Gators winning a place in the play-off on countback over Checkers and Pioneer. Such is the competitive nature of the competition already this season.
In other games Lincoln University had a sound win over battlers Wolverines 71-50 and University of Canterbury showed a much-improved effort as it edged Halswell 51-47 in a stadium stopping thriller.
Minties, have returned to take their place in the competition after withdrawing part way through in 2017. The side now contains former North Cantabrians Hayley Gray and Terina Wanoa as the Canterbury Wildcat players have been spread about the competition and had the bye.
With quite a number of new faces in this season’s side, North Canterbury are slowly building team combinations.
The side is also playing in the second tier of the WBC championship and is well placed there. At times the team looked like a well-oiled machine until the moves broke down. There was much energy on defence and plenty of strong passing as the team ran a formidable fast-break but the final finishing efforts were often lack-lustre and the team had to make numerous rebounding efforts to eventually find the hoop.
Stand outs for the North Canterbury team were National Junior representatives Charlotte Whittaker (22 pts) and Esra McGoldrick who was playing in her last game for the team before she heads stateside to attend NC State University. While other strong contributions came from Tiana Placid 16, Helen Mathews 15, Sila Morris 11 and Taneisha Nutira 10.
Patron’s trophy placings after Saturday were: Lincoln 5W-0L10Pts, Pioneer 4-2-10, Minties 3-3-9, NC 4-0-8, University 2-4-8, Wolverines 1-5-7, Halswell 0-5-5.