Eagles Rd 14 Preview | Away v Giants

Featured image: Mark Filpo, @codexdesignstudio

The East Perth Eagles women will look to keep their momentum going in the NBL1 West in Kalgoorlie on Saturday night while the men are trying to kickstart their season against the Goldfields Giants.

It's Round 14 of the NBL1 West season with the Eagles heading to Kalgoorlie to take on the Giants at Evolution Mining Stadium with the women's contest beginning at 6pm and the men's game to follow at 8pm.

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WOMEN

The Eagles head to Kalgoorlie with momentum having beaten the Rockingham Flames last Saturday night and will look to keep that going against the Goldfields Giants in Kalgoorlie this Saturday.

Coming into the Saturday night match up at Evolution Mining Stadium and the Eagles are sitting in fourth position in the NBL1 West standings at 11-4 while the Giants aren’t far behind in sixth position at 8-6.

East Perth head on the road trip having won their past two matches against the South West Slammers and Rockingham Flames but do need to keep winning to maintain their hold on a top four position, and to stay in touch of the top two.

Then there are Goldfields who split their road double last weekend with a win against the South West Slammers on Saturday where superstar forward Sierra Moore had a triple double.

But Moore then injured an ankle on Sunday in the loss to the Mandurah Magic leaving her in doubt to take on the Eagles on Saturday night.

It is a crucial game for both teams with the Eagles looking to consolidate their top four position and the Giants attempting to stay in touch of the top four and go close to guaranteeing their first time making the playoffs in the women's competition since joining the NBL1 in 2022.

Eagles coach Jonelle Morley won't be spending too much time worrying about who will or won't be playing for the Giants and will just be focused on getting the Eagles to build on that momentum from last week's win over the Flames.

"We haven't had confirmation if Sierra is playing or not even though obviously we know that she hurt her ankle, but for any team when you've got an outstanding player like that, you have to prepare that she potentially might still get up to play," Morley said.

"You still have to prepare to play against somebody like that and that's what we'll do, but if she doesn’t make it up, they still have some quality players and they're on their home court and we're travelling there.

"We know they'll come out hard and hungry, and they've been playing really well as a team this year and that's why they're in the top eight.

"We're going to have to be ready to put our best game out there and it's an opportunity for us after we've built over the last couple of weeks.

"We're only just really now fully figuring out our team chemistry and all those sort of things which is really exciting.

"We want to make sure we continue to build on everything that we've been doing now and our aim will be putting a quality game out on the court whoever we come up against."

MEN

The Eagles remain inside the NBL1 West top eight in the men's competition and have a chance to start building some momentum in the back end of the season when they take on the Goldfields Giants on Saturday night.

East Perth head to Kalgoorlie having lost seven of the last nine games, but they do remain in eighth position in the standings at 7-9 as they take on the Giants who are 4-11 and having lost four of the last five themselves.

Despite those recent records for both teams, there's plenty of talent on each and they will be looking for Saturday night's match up as a chance to start building some momentum.

Given the Eagles possess a front court featuring former Giant De'Sean Parsons, captain Lee Roberts, David Okwera, Lat Mayen and Ioannis Dimakopoulos, that's a definite strength for them but the Giants aren't lacking in that area.

New import Matthew MacLellan has put up 18.0 points and 7.7 rebounds over his first three games while the Giants also possess plenty of size with Lino Manhom, Josh Duach and Michael Jok.

Both teams have their sharpshooters with Jonah Antonio and Mitch Benger out there for East Perth and Jerome Reid for Goldfields while in the back court the Eagles have Nick Filpo, Kai Kabugua and Bing Huang, and the Giants have Sam Vinson leading the way.

Eagles coach Carl Filpo is fully aware that even if the Giants are 4-11 on the season, that they are going to be tough to overcome specially in Kalgoorlie.

"It's obviously a big game considering the state of the season we're at with six games to go so every game from here is big. We think that we can get this win and kickstart a few more that we can string together," Filpo said.

"They are talented for sure and on their bench they have a couple of guys who have been there for some time.

"I don't know much about their new import but I've watched him obviously and he's a big fella putting up good numbers who plays well.

"They've got a few good players for sure and their starting five is as talented as anyone's, we just have to make sure we play our game and do what we do."