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Sport

1 November, 2024

Key weekend for Blazers’ season hopes

It’s a make-or-break weekend for the Maryborough Blazers, as both men’s and women’s teams seek to keep their finals chances alive.

By Michael Thompson

Aislinn McCarthy, pictured against Macedon Ranges Rockies, will be hoping to keep her good scoring run going.
Aislinn McCarthy, pictured against Macedon Ranges Rockies, will be hoping to keep her good scoring run going.

The men’s Blazers will be looking to keep their chances alive after taking a much-needed win against Kyneton, but will essentially need to be perfect from here on in to land a spot in the finals.

They’ll also have to turn around a 35-point loss to Bendigo just two weeks ago in addition to that, having struggled from the outset to get into the game.

In saying that, since then, they have had impressive outputs from a number of players.

None have been more impressive than Bailey Jacobs, who has been on a scoring spree of late.

Jacobs has averaged 26 points across his last four games, which included an incredible conclusion to the Blazers’ 37-point win against Kyneton, a game where he scored the final 17 points for the Blazers to finish with 39.

Brady Neill made a return last week, and was able to immediately settle back into the groove, scoring 22 points, while Lachlan Drummond also played well, scoring 14 points, as did Tyson Iglesias, who finished with 11 points.

Neill, Drummond and Jacobs were the top three scorers in their last meeting with the Braves, and they’ll be hoping to take the challenge right to the team that currently sits second.

In their last meeting, the Braves got the jump to lead by 12 points at the first change, before scoring 23 points to seven to lead by 28 points at the main break.

Maryborough were much more competitive in the second half, but it was not enough to prevent a 35-point loss.

A win is of the utmost importance, given the Blazers will soon host a double-header against the fifth-placed Swan Hill and fourth-placed Mildura — the two teams most likely to be the Blazers’ biggest opposition to a top four spot.

Meantime, the Lady Blazers currently sit on the bottom of the ladder, but will have a chance to bounce back up the table if they can protect home court.

In particular, they will be hoping to take a second victory against Bendigo in two weeks after a spectacular outing in Bendigo in round three which yielded a six-point victory.

While the Lady Blazers had two tough assignments since against Kyneton, they were most certainly up to the challenge last week, challenging for the lead for long periods of time, and sitting in front with just under six minutes to go, before the class of the Tigers was telling in the final five minutes of the game.

The Lady Blazers have had a settled spread of scorers in the recent past, with Maggie Tranter in particular playing good basketball of late, finishing in double-digits in three of her last four games, which included an 18-point haul in the aforementioned win against Bendigo, and 17 last week against Kyneton.

Maddy Egan had her best game of the season last week, finishing with 20 points to lead all scorers for the Lady Blazers, while Aislinn McCarthy (13 points) and Faith McKenzie (13 points) also contributed well.

While there would be frustration at sitting last after five games, the Lady Blazers have been more than competitive enough for a large majority of those games, but have had runs go against them at critical junctures.

It was also at this time last season that the Lady Blazers started getting some continuity into their game, recording some memorable wins as the season went on, only just missing out on a finals spot in the end — certainly, they will be hoping for a better ending in 2024 if they can repeat their run from 2023.

The Lady Blazers’ double-header will see them host Bendigo on Saturday afternoon, followed by a clash against Swan Hill on Sunday.

Win those two, and the Lady Blazers will vault back into finals contention — especially with another home double-header to come next week, with another game against the struggling Flyers, who are currently 1-5, as well as the Mildura Heat, who are sitting in fourth position.

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