Bendigo impresses at home yet again

The Champions IGA Bendigo Braves Women continued their march towards the NBL1 South finals, with two impressive wins on the weekend.

Bendigo wowed their home crowd at Red Energy Arena on both Saturday and Sunday, with a 90-71 win against Sandringham and a 100-69 defeat of Casey.

Megan McKay and Tess Madgen both had big weekends. McKay had 32 points and 14 rebounds against the Sabres, and 26 and 12 against the Cavaliers.

Madgen ended Saturday night with 20 points, nine rebounds and 13 assists in yet another stunning display. On Sunday, she backed up with 32 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists.

Abbey Wehrung also had a good weekend on the stat sheet, with 14 and 15 points over the two days.

To highlight the strength of the top-of-the-table Brave’s lineup, every player scored on Sunday , and all-but one hit the scoreboard on Saturday.

For coach Mark Alabakov, it was yet another pleasing round, despite being challenged early in both games.

“Both teams were playing for their finals lives, so we knew they would come ready to play,” he said.

“Our style of gameplay lends itself to us being able to win over four quarters, which is something we have focused on all year.

“Our ball movement was really good in both games. That was the standout across the weekend.”

Alabakov was also impressed with his team’s ability to score in the key against Casey on Sunday.

“They had three players over 6’ 2’’, and one of them was Abby Bishop, which posed a difficult challenge for us,” he said.

“Yet we scored 56 points in the paint, and Casey scored 69 for the whole game.

“We found a way to help on defense and our plan was to outrun them as much as possible.”

Madgen will head to New York this week for a six-day Opals camp, and will miss this weekend’s games.

Bendigo travels to Nunawading on Saturday night, with the Women’s game starting at 5.30pm and the Men’s 7.30pm. They then host Hobart at Red Energy Arena on Sunday, the Women at noon and the Men at 2pm.

Photo - Akuna Photography