Eagles Rd 5 Preview | Home v Perry Lakes

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

Sarah Mortensen and Steve Weingarten will both play their first home East Perth Eagles games to commemorate Anzac Day this Saturday evening with NBL1 West match ups against the Perry Lakes Hawks.

The Eagles will play at home for just the second time so far this season on Saturday night on Anzac Day against Perry Lakes on Peter Campbell Basketball Arena at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

The women's contest gets proceedings underway starting at 5pm with the men's clash to follow at 7pm.

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WOMEN

The Eagles suffered a first loss of the season last Saturday and now will look to respond immediately up against the Perry Lakes Hawks at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

East Perth made a blistering start to life under new coach Jonelle Morley winning the opening three matches of the season before heading to Arena Joondalup to take on the winless Joondalup Wolves last Friday night.

The Wolfpack ended up putting in a tremendous performance to secure the 77-72 win but now the Eagles have the chance to quickly bounce back on Saturday night at home against the Hawks.

Last Friday night was the first time that the Eagles had to play without star guard Jasmin Fejo who ruptured her ACL at training on Tuesday night leading into the game ending her season prematurely.

East Perth also welcomed two-time championship winner Sarah Mortensen for the first time too and after just one training session with her new team, she'll be better prepared for a big impact this Saturday night after a full week of practice.

The Hawks come into the clash against the Eagles with a 1-2 record but there was a lot to like in what they did last Saturday night in an eventual overtime loss against the Lakeside Lightning.

That included Bridgette Rettstatt having a monster performance consisting of 34 points and 32 rebounds so she is going to be a handful for the Eagles front court to try and keep in check.

Now after playing her first game with the Eagles last Saturday night away to the Wolves, Mortensen is looking forward to a first home game on Saturday this week to commemorate Anzac Day against the Hawks at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

"I'm super excited for the first home game and that's always fun, and I hope we get a lot of Eagles fans out here to cheer us on," Mortensen said.

"It's another challenge ahead and we're going to dial in and hopefully get back on a winning streak."

Dynamic Eagles point guard Sydney Wright is so far averaging 12.0 points and 3.0 assists to start her NBL1 West career and is looking forward to another challenge on Saturday night against Perry Lakes.

"I'm excited to be back at home for this game and am definitely looking forward to the challenge," Wright said.

"We have some things that we want to clean up after last week and we're looking forward to Saturday night."

MEN

The Eagles are building some impressive momentum now this season and come into Saturday night's clash with the Perry Lakes Hawks on a three-game winning run and looking to keep the form going.

With the Eagles on a three-game winning streak and the Hawks coming off their first win of the season, and with both teams looking to keep that momentum going and to honour Anzac Day, there's plenty of reasons to suggest it's going to be a fascinating contest.

The Eagles opened the season with a first up road loss to the still undefeated Willetton Tigers but since then have been impressive firstly beating the Mandurah Magic at home, and then with road wins against local rivals the Warwick Senators and Joondalup Wolves.

That has East Perth now coming into Saturday night's clash with a three-game winning streak and a 3-1 record on the season as they take on a Perry Lakes team on an opposite 1-3 record.

However, the Hawks did win in their last up effort against the Lakeside Lightning last Saturday night at Bendat Basketball Centre with Cam Huefner shining with 42 points.

The Perth Wildcats development player will take some watching now from the Eagles on Saturday night but he'll come up against Eagles pair Lat Mayen and David Okwera who are familiar with him with the trio all spending NBL26 as teammates.

Perry Lakes are also going to add Jaron Rillie, Isaiah Moses and Jack Browder to their team any week now for this season so even while having won just one of their opening four games, they could be a team on the rise and an opponent the Eagles have to be fully on guard against.

At the same time, things are building nicely for the Eagles and there's still plenty of improvement to come within the team which was highlighted in last Friday night's win against the Wolves at Arena Joondalup.

East Perth can still shoot the ball better and went just 5/21 from behind the three-point line and they also had 24 turnovers, but despite that they still handed the Wolfpack their first defeat of the season.

That was on the back of some strong defence to hold a team that had scored 100-plus in their three wins to just 86 points on the night with Okwera, Mayen and Jonah Antonio all showing why they were NBL26 players combining for 56 points, 27 rebounds, 12 assists, eight steals and five blocks.

It was a whirlwind debut last Friday night for new Eagles import Steve Weingarten who only landed in Perth from the United States on Friday afternoon before turning up to play at Arena Joondalup just hours later.

He's looking forward to a better preparation for this Saturday night's match up and to get back into the groove of playing again after a long preparation to return to the basketball court.

"It will be a great opportunity to compete and every game in this league I just think is really important, and you can't overlook anybody based on their record," Weingarten said.

"Teams go up and down but you really just have to stay focused and everybody's season can change on a dime, and all it takes is one win to get that going.

"I'm ready to play and I've trained very hard over a long period of time with all the waiting I had to do to stay in top shape for this opportunity so I'm just going to enjoy finally getting to be on the court and letting all that hard work that I've put in start to pay off."