Central Spotlight | Forestville keep winning to stay top

Featured image: Dan Cowley | @imagesby_dan

Fiston Ipassou, Daniel Johnosn and Greg Mays all had 18 points with Jordan Forbes adding 16 and six as the Forestville Eagles kept winning in the NBL1 Central overcome Thomas Kurowski's 26 points to beat the Norwood Flames 103-85.

Forestville were back home at the State Basketball Centre after making it three straight wins the previous night against the Central Districts Lions with Norwood arriving coming off a big loss to the West Adelaide Bearcats.

The Eagles then started on fire with 33 points in the first quarter with 13/20 shooting and while Norwood did keep fighting hard, Forestville continued to have the answers on the way to the eventual 18-point victory with 27 points to 18 in the final term.

The win improves Forestville to a 14-2 record with four consecutive wins to retain top spot while Norwood remain out of a playoff spot at 6-10 having lost both games this weekend.

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The Eagles were in control of the contest once again most of the afternoon ending up shooting 48 per cent to the 43 from Norwood along with hitting 9/18 to 10/27 from downtown, 18/27 to 17/23 from the foul line, and having 21 offensive rebounds and forcing the Flames into 18 turnovers.

That saw Forestville get up an extra 12 shot attempts as well as shooting at a better clip with all five starters making strong contributions but so did Fiston Ipassou off the bench with 18 points, five rebounds and two steals.

Greg Mays also delivered 18 points and six rebounds with Daniel Johnson ending up with 18 points, eight boards, three assists and two steals with 6/10 shooting from the field and 6/8 at the foul line.

Jordan Forbes finished with 16 points, six assists, four rebounds and two steals, Alex Starling 11 points, 11 boards and three assists and Adam Doyle 10 points and four assists while hitting his first three three-point attempts after going 7/7 the night before.

Thomas Kurowski did all he could to keep Norwood in the contest with 26 points to go with five rebounds, three assists and three steals with 9/11 foul shooting.

Inady Legiste also had 17 points and six rebounds for the Flames, Cooper Osborne nine points and 10 assists, Mason Whittaker eight points, and Aydan Janssan eight points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks.

Both teams had played the night before with Forestville beating Central Districts by 26 points while Norwood went down to West Adelaide by 31, and it was the Eagles that kept that rolling into the Sunday match up.

Forestville went on an 11-0 scoring run in the first quarter and by quarter-time were leading 33-23 on the back of shooting 13/20 from the floor to 7/18 along with forcing the Flames into six turnovers.

That lead for the Eagles got out to as much as 16 points in the second term before going into half-time still in control at 55-42 with plenty of contributors with Forbes up to 13 points, but Daniel Johnson scoring 12, Greg Mays 10 and Adam Doyle nine with another 3/3 three-point shooting.

Thomas Kurowski was doing his best to keep Norwood in the contest with 17 points to half-time but his team were just shooting 41 per cent and had 10 turnovers while Forestville were shooting at 53 per cent with just the six turnovers.

The Flames weren’t going away and did outscore the Eagles 25 to 21 in the third quarter and were back within nine at three quarter-time.

Forestville took back over in the last quarter with another 11-0 run to go back up by 20 and then completing the deal on the 18-point win with another 27 points to 18 to make it four straight wins to maintain top spot.

Forestville will look to further consolidate top spot against the Woodville Warriors on the road next Saturday while Norwood will try to bounce back at home to the Eastern Mavericks.

NBL1 CENTRAL 2026 SEASON | ROUND 13

FORESTVILLE EAGLES 103 (Mays 18, Johnson 18, Ipassou 18)

NORWOOD FLAMES 85 (Kurowski 26, Legiste 17, Osborne 9)