South Spotlight | Griscti lifts Spectres over Froling's Rangers

Featured image: Rachel Louise - Rachel Louise Photography @rachellouisephotographyau

Ben Griscti fired to help his team to a 19-point lead but Harry Froling ended up with 37 points to give the Dandenong Rangers a sniff but the Nunawading Spectres held them out for the 111-106 NBL1 South win.

It always shaped as a tantalising match up at Nunawading Basketball Centre with the Spectres having occupied top spot before losing their past two games to the Casey Cavaliers and Sandringham Sabres.

The Rangers are still knocking on the door of the top four despite a last up loss to Keilor Thunder with 24 points a game scorer Joe Palmer missing while he was getting married.

Nunawading then were up by as much as 19 points early in the third quarter before Dandenong came charging back and got back within one late in the piece.

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That's when it was a triple from Kingsley Box that ended up ensuring Nunawading secured the five-point victory to improve to a 9-4 record with Dandenong now slipping to 8-6 having lost their past two now.

Ben Griscti showed that he's fully over that nasty neck injury suffered at the NBL Blitz in Canberra that ruled him out of all of NBL26 with the Adelaide 36ers.

He starred in the win for the Spectres with 26 points and seven rebounds with 11/21 shooting with 18 of those points coming in the opening half.

Christian D'Angelo also had 21 points, six rebounds, six assists and two blocks in the win with Dylan Penn adding 19 points, 11 assists and four boards, Owen Lobsinger 15 points and six rebounds, Kingsley Box 11 points and four boards, and Jack Gandolfo 10 points and four assists.

Harry Froling put the Rangers on his back for a lot of the night and finished with 37 points, seven rebounds and four assists on 14/22 field goal shooting with 8/14 free-throw shooting while playing all but one second of the game.

Michael Meadows also finished with 21 points, three rebounds and three assists, Sam Davidson 20 points, two boards and two steals, and Joe Palmer returned from getting married back in the United States last weekend to have 11 points and five rebounds.

Nunawading had dropped from top spot by losing their past two games while Dandenong also lost last up with Joe Palmer away to get married, and it was the Rangers who started the better with an early seven-point lead.

Nunawading responded from there with 13 straight points to go into quarter-time leading 27-23 with Jack Gandolfo scoring eight points, Owen Lobsinger seven and Ben Griscti seven while Michael Meadows had 11 for Dandenong.

The Spectres kept that momentum going to push out to a 17-point lead in the second term and Griscti was a dominant presence inside up to 18 points on 8/10 shooting at half-time.

But Dandenong did at least go into the break with a spark following a buzzer-beater from the freshly married Palmer to cut the Spectres lead at the interval to 56-43.

Nunawading then got up by a game-high 19 points early in the third quarter only for Dandenong to fire back and end up scoring 32 points in the third term with Harry Froling scoring eight of them to be up to 21 while Sam Davidson caught fire to cut the Spectres lead to five at three quarter-time.

That set up a big last quarter and Froling was doing everything he could to give Dandenong a chance including bringing them back within two with four minutes to play.

Dylan Penn responded with a crafty floater for Nunawading but then Palmer was fouled taking a three, he made them all and it was a one-point ball game with three minutes on the clock.

Griscti then put the Spectres back up three, then up four when he scored inside once more and then Kingsley Box sealed the deal with a huge triple with 30 seconds left and Nunawading held on from there to win by five.

The Spectres will look to back up the win when they take on the league-leading Melbourne Tigers on the road on Sunday with Dandenong also in action the next day at home to Geelong United.

NBL1 SOUTH 2026 SEASON | HERITAGE ROUND

NUNAWADING SPECTRES 111 (Griscti 26, D'Angelo 21, Penn 19)

DANDENONG RANGERS 106 (Froling 37, Meadows 21, Davidson 20)