Basketball: Hawks claw way back with two wins in weekend southern raid

The Hawks star of the night Jordan Ngatai takes on Southland Sharks player Benjamin Hall in Invercargill. Photo / Bay Hawks

A match haul of seven three-pointers to newly-acquired Jordan Ngatai was the icing on the cake as the Taylor Bay Hawke’s Bay Hawks basketballer bounced his team back into contention for a top NBL playoffs place, with two big wins in a 24-hour southern raid at the weekend.

The Hawks, who’d been on the slide for most of the time with just one win since opening the season with two victories at Easter, caused a big upset on Friday night with a 95-94 win over league leaders the Otago Nuggets in Dunedin, and then travelled another 200 kilometres to the south to complete a home-and-away double for the season against the Southland Sharks, with a 106-87 win in Invercargill on Saturday.

It was in Invercargill that Ngatai, secured from the Wellington Saints in the off-season, carried out his long-range bombardment, with seven strikes from 13 attempts in his haul of 27 points, while Hyrum Harris did his bit with three successes from three attempts, with 20 points from the game.

The Hawks were never headed after a Ngatai three-pointer made it 12-9 entering the fifth minute of the game.

They increased the lead at each break, to 40-27 at the end of the first quarter, 60-45 at halftime and 85-67 at the end of the third.

In Dunedin, 24 hours earlier, top of the pops was sole American import Ira Lee, with a match-winning turn-around two-point jump shot with just 3.2 seconds left on the clock.

The Nuggets, for whom Michael Harris top-scored with a match-high 31 points, led 21-19 at the end of the first quarter, and 45-41 at the end of the second, in which the lead was twice stretched to nine points.

Pulling back from nine down again in the third quarter, the Hawks led 63-62 entering the final 10 minutes.

Derone Raukawa shot 16 points and Jordan Hunt 15, including three three-point successes from five attempts.

Todd Withers shot 25 for the Nuggets, meaning the losing home side had the two top scorers.

Elevated to fifth on the 10-team ladder, a position that didn’t change with the weekend’s remaining games, the Hawks have now won five away this season, play the Canterbury Rams in Christchurch next Saturday, and return to the Pettigrew Green Arena in Taradale on June 10 still trying for a first win at home, against the Franklin Bulls.