Eagles Rd 7 Preview | Home v Magic

Image credit: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

The East Perth Eagles will play their first opponent for a second time this NBL1 West season when hosting the Mandurah Magic on Saturday evening at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

The Eagles return to Peter Campbell Basketball Arena on Saturday with the women's team back in action following the bye last weekend while the men are trying to back up a memorable road victory in Geraldton.

The women's clash between East Perth and Mandurah will tip-off at 5pm with the men's clash between the Eagles and Magic to follow at 7pm.

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WOMEN

The East Perth Eagles women remain one of only two teams in the competition with only one defeat to their names so far in 2025 and they will look to take out two weeks of frustration on the Mandurah Magic.

The Eagles women won their opening four matches of the 2025 season under new coach Tim Symons in impressive fashion against the Rockingham Flames, Mandurah Magic, Kalamunda Eastern Suns and Joondalup Wolves.

Then prior to last week's break, East Perth did suffer a first loss of the season but it was still a strong performance to only lose by a point to a powerful Warwick Senators team with the Eagles having two chances just before the buzzer to put in a game winning shot as well.

So really the Eagles are one shot away from sitting on a perfect 5-0 record right now and having had 15 days since playing that game against the Senators, they will look to hit the ground running on Saturday evening on Peter Campbell Basketball Arena hosting the Magic.

The two teams have already played one another back on April 12 in Mandurah and on that evening the Eagles were impressive with the 87-79 victory.

They will be looking to back that up but it's against a Magic team since then who has won three of their last five matches with the only two defeats in that time against the undefeated Cockburn Cougars and a Warwick team who also beat East Perth two weeks ago.

The Magic also opened Round 7 by hosting the Joondalup Wolves on Thursday night and recorded a 106-73 victory on their home floor which improved them to a 5-3 record on the season as they arrive at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre on Saturday.

There will be fascinating match ups all over the floor starting Abby Cubillo as Eagles point guard up against the league's games record holder Casey Mihovilovich from the Magic.

Sasha Goodlett will spend a lot of her night down low battling McKenna Dale and Emma Klasztorny while the Madison Torresin match up with Claire Jacobs will be yet another one that will be crucial to the final result.

The game presents the Eagles with a chance to improve to a 5-1 record after the opening seven rounds of the season and to be sitting solid in second position only behind the unbeaten Cougars in the standings.

MEN

The East Perth Eagles produced their best performance of the season last Saturday night to win in Geraldton and now will look to back that up when hosting the defending champion Mandurah Magic a week later.

The Eagles were starting to get to must-win territory last week when making the trip to Geraldton having only won one of the first five games of the season, but what they delivered was a showing putting on display what the group of 2025 was capable.

Having added Cairns Taipans NBL guard Jonah Antonio into the line-up as a replacement for injured captain Taylor Young, the Eagles were outstanding with the 92-89 victory to improve their season record to 2-4.

The challenges keep on coming, though, and now next up for East Perth taking on a Mandurah team fresh off winning last year's championship at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre on Saturday night.

The two teams have already met once this season too with the Magic beating the Eagles 114-109 at Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre.

Now coming into the return encounter on Saturday night, the Eagles sit on a 2-4 record and looking for consecutive wins for the first time in 2025 while the Magic are 5-3.

Mandurah has already played this round and suffered a loss at home back on Thursday night to the Joondalup Wolves following their own big win on the road last Saturday evening against the Goldfields Giants.

There's plenty to look forward in the contest as well with the likes of Antonio, Matthew Lang and Max Rice in the back court coming up against Lachlan Bertram, Julian Pesava and Jahcoree Ealy in the back court.

The up front Lee Roberts and Ioannis Dimakopoulos will tackle Sammy Freeman and Cooper Lowe from the Magic.

Mandurah is playing a high tempo game this season as defending champions and Eagles coach Carl Filpo is fully aware of the threat they present.

"It's not lost on me how dangerous they are and they had a really big road win themselves last weekend like we did," Filpo said.

"When you've got the local guys like Julian and Lachlan that they do who are outdoing their imports who are certainly no slouches either and are going well, then it makes them a really good team.

"They you add in a couple of other threats on the perimeter like Hamish Warden who can knock it down, and we've got a lot to look after and we've got our work cut out. But we're up for it.

"I mean if there's a time to play them, if I could pick a week then this would be it with us coming off the high of Geraldton the guys have some really strong belief in themselves. I'm expecting Jonah to also step up another level now that he's had a whole week with us and I'm feeling good about it to be honest."