BOTH the Horsham Hornets and Lady Hornets secured finals spots with impressive wins against Millicent Magic on Sunday afternoon.
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The Hornets and Lady Hornets bounced back from defeats at the hands of the Corio Bay Stingrays on Saturday.
The Lady Hornets will look to defend the premiership the team won last season while the men will aim to win a first title in more than five years.
The men’s side still has one regular season game remaining against the Terang Tornadoes.
Ladies
THE Lady Hornets welcomed several players back from injury and recorded a gutsy home win against the ladder-leading Magic 83-64.
The Lady Hornets led for the entire match, with Sophie Alexander welcomed back into the line-up along with Georgia Carberry.
Coach Gareth Hiscock said Alexander made a huge difference on the court.
“It looks like we dominated Millicent on paper but to be fair they had a lot of players missing due to state commitments,” he said.
“Hopefully we get to come up against them again in the finals.”
The Hornets finished the regular season in third spot on the ladder and will travel to South Australia to take on either Millicent Magic or Mt Gambier Lakers in a semi-final clash.
“It is our title to defend. The whole side is looking forward to it and hopefully we will have a full team to pick from,” Hiscock said.
“Everyone has played each other twice now so we will look to exploit what we know each side’s weaknesses are.”
Alexander, Ema Iredell and Caitlin Story were named among the best Lady Hornets players against the Magic.
“Story has been an underestimated player and has been great for us,” Hiscock said.
Men’s
THE Horsham Hornets managed to grind out a win against Millicent Magic on Sunday, bouncing back from a defeat to Corio Bay Stingrays on Saturday.
The side won the match 75-67.
The win secured second spot on the ladder for the Hornets and a home semi-final.
Hornets coach Cam Bruce said even though the side lost to the Stingrays, he told his players they should not be disappointed with their performance.
“We played a very good team,” he said.
“I told them not to get too down. We were possibly rusty from having three to four weeks off.
“It was good to fight through to get a win on Sunday.”
Bruce said the game against the Magic was a scrappy one.
“It was very tight the whole game,” he said.
“But it is good to see we can grind out a win when we aren’t playing our best.”
The Hornets will travel to Terang next weekend for the last game of the regular season.
Bruce said he side would work on three aspects of its game coming into finals.
“We will be doing a lot more defensive and shooting work as well as some attacking formations,” he said.
Tim Pickert was a standout against the Magic, leading from the front and constantly attacking to draw fouls.
Bruce said Mitch Martin had also come a long way with his basketball in the past year.
“He is taking a lot more responsibility in his game. Some of the younger players are getting forced to play more minutes through players missing, but that is helping them,” he said.
