East Spotlight | Defending champs dominate Hornets

Featured image: Graeme Dix

Friday night NBL1 East action saw the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles show how hungry they are for back-to-back championships with the 85-52 road victory against the Hills Hornets.

The Sea Eagles wrapped up the 2025 NBL1 East season with a 19-game winning streak culminating in the Grand Final triumph against the Centre of Excellence, but there's no signs of a championship hangover.

They started their title defence beating the Canberra Nationals in the season-opener at home and following the Easter break, had no trouble keeping that momentum going on Friday night against the Hornets at Hills Basketball Stadium.

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The Hornets opened their season with an opening round double where they beat the Inner West Bulls and lost to the Newcastle Falcons on the road head of the home opener against the Sea Eagles.

It was a dominant performance all-round from Manly Warringah as they made it 21 consecutive NBL1 East wins.

Sari Mowbray delivered 19 points, six rebounds and four steals in the win for the Sea Eagles while Zoey Miller produced 16 points, eight assists and four rebounds.

Freya Bijkerk ended up with 13 points and four rebounds with 4/5 field goal shooting and going 4/6 at the stripe with Olivia Johnston adding eight points, five rebounds and two blocks, Bree Delaney seven points and five boards, and Alex Delaney seven points and five rebounds.

Jayda Jansen also ended up with six points, six rebounds and five assists.

Ella Gale ended up top-scoring for the Hornets with 10 points to go with eight rebounds and three steals on 4/7 field goal shooting.

Kennedy Johnson added nine points, five rebounds and four assists, Jade Kirisome nine points, eight assists and two steals, and Lucy Corke eight points and two boards with 2/3 shooting from downtown.

The Sea Eagles went on an 8-0 scoring run in the first quarter and on the back of that were leading 23-15 by quarter-time without having a turnover and getting to the foul line nine times to just two from the Hornets.

The Manly Warringah lead blew out to as much as 19 points in the second quarter as well and with another 25 points to 15, they were in control leading 48-30 by the break with 15 free-throw attempts to two.

Zoey Miller and Freya Bijkerk combined for 21 of those 48 points for the defending champions while Lucy Corke had eight points on perfect 3/3 shooting for the home team.

It was more dominance from the Sea Eagles in the third period as they held the Hornets to just the eight points and they went on a 16-0 scoring run as the lead got out beyond 30.

Manly Warringah were still leading by 28 at three quarter-time and then it was another 19 points to 14 in the final stanza as they kept their perfect start to their title defence going with the 33-point victory on the road.

It's the only game of the weekend for the Hornets while the Sea Eagles back up on Saturday remaining on the road to the Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Spiders.

NBL1 EAST 2026 SEASON | ROUND 2

HILLS HORNETS 52 (Gale 10, Johnson 9, Kirisome 9)

MANLY WARRINGAH SEA EAGLES 85 (Mowbray 19, Miller 16, Bijkerk 13)