Farewell to 'The Rec' Youth League Women: Werribee v McKinnon, May 23rd

The Werribee Devils farewelled ‘The Rec’ with a double header in front of a packed house on Saturday night. The Youth League women’s team snatched a 61-58 win over McKinnon, while the State Championship men were by no means disgraced, pushing the Hume City Broncos all the way before going down by 11 points, 84-73.


The girls, energised by the biggest home crowd they’d seen for a while, got off to a lightning quick 15-3 start, thanks to some great shooting from Kennedy Taylor and Olivia Klaman. Britney Epperson and Teaghan Doyle were big on the boards, grabbing seven between them in the first quarter. Once the game settled down, McKinnon made some smarter decisions and drew some fouls, giving themselves scoring opportunities and finishing the first quarter within four points of the home side, 18-14.

Early Devils fouls and some confusion in defence allowed MacKinnon to close the gap and they hit the front with 2:11 left in the first half, taking a one-point lead into half time, 33-32. There were no obvious standouts for the Devils, but Rachel Miller had a big quarter with six rebounds and Charlotte Vincent-Lord had three first-half blocks.

The Devils made a sluggish start to the third quarter, struggling to create anything in offence while up the other end McKinnon seemed to be getting to the basket too easily, resulting in a timeout from frustrated coach Paul Jones. The girls immediately responded with nine consecutive points and took a 45-44 lead heading into the last quarter. “We just stopped moving. They were pressuring us off the ball and there were a lot of gaps. We just needed to regain our concentration and stick to the task,” Jones said later.

Kennedy Taylor (eight points, nine rebounds) and Teaghan Doyle (12 points, nine rebounds) continued to be prominent for the Devils, while Britney Epperson was impressive on the defensive end with three blocks.

The final quarter was played at a frenetic pace, with both teams switched on and keen for the win. The Devils opened the scoring through Rachel Miller and scored the first six points, giving them an early lead which they held until the last two minutes. The lead changed several times toward the end before two free throws to Tegan Hindle put the Devils three points up and they held on for a confidence boosting 61-58 victory.

Coach Paul Jones was happy with the win. “We shot the ball well early, which helped. Basketball is a confidence game. We stopped for a while when they changed their zone, and it took us a while to adjust. At half time we talked about sticking to the process; we know we’re good enough, we just have to finish and tonight we toughed it out.”