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BASKETBALL
Come and see it for yourself.
The Gisborne Basketball Association women’s club league is an amazing competition in 2019.
Close games are the norm, and the skills and quality of play are remarkable. On Tuesday, new entrants YMCA Riverina took Gisborne Girls’ High School to the brink in Game 1 of Week 5 at the YMCA. Girls’ High survived the scare 39-36.
In Game 2, a feisty Paikea Nation hustled and pushed their way to a 47-45 win against 2017 champions Lytton High School.
Last year’s champs, Ngati Porou, defaulted to Campion College.
Riverina deserve some credit.
Although Girls’ High led 7-3, 18-17, 33-27 through the quarters, Riverina’s control let them stay in touch, and they had Connie Gardner.
The tall forward has, in next to no time this season, improved her skills dramatically. She has picked up the high-percentage shooter’s spots far earlier than many.
She and Larissa Mann led YMCA Riverina’s efforts with 11 points apiece.
Girls’ High School’s Te Oriwa Collier-Tuipulotu (formerly of Campion) led all scorers in the six-team league on the night with 24 points, including three three-point shots.
The first play of the game told how much Riverina had picked up about basketball in the previous four weeks. Amy Spence found teammate Gardner open to the right of the hoop for 2-0.
Also in the first quarter, Girls’ High School’s Peyton Riri (7pts) sent length-of-the-court assists to both Micayla Upston — for 2-2 —and Collier-Tuipulotu, who swung through below the rim to make a reverse lay-up for 7-2.
“With their zone defence, we had to shoot more from the perimeter and tonight our shots fell,” Collier-Tuipulotu said.
“We were composed and it was awesome to see our newbies become more confident on the floor.”
Paikea Nation are a force of nature in this league.
The Mackey sisters — Natalie, Melissa Mackey-Huriwai and Maiangi — have been joined by the next generation in Melissa’s daughter, 12-year-old Ishtar.
Ishtar scored Paikea’s last seven points (long jumpshot to boot) of the 53-31 Week 4 win against Campion. In Tuesday’s 47-45 victory over Lytton High School, she wowed the crowd with a sensational bounce-pass on the run, off the dribble, to Natalie for 33-31 in the third quarter.
Melissa Mackey-Huriwai led all scorers in the game with 20 points in Week 5. Natalie Mackey (7pts) and Amoe Tarsau (6pts) also featured strongly for Paikea.
Alicia Kepa was Lytton’s leading scorer with 15 points, three three-pointers included.
Captain Jayda Waititi-Leach gave Lytton a second scorer in double-figures with 10pts.
Paikea were a nose ahead (12-9, 28-25, 42-34) from go to whoa but the skilful college team challenged them. Waititi-Leach scored with a floater on the baseline early on, and her teammate Kellann Kemp hit a jumpshot from the right corner to close it to 24-19 in the second period.
“They’re a strong team, but we ran our plays well and could still have won,” Waititi-Leach said.
“We just needed to make a couple more shots.”