By JARROD POTTER
BIG V
THE hard way is turning into the Casey way as the Cavaliers managed to fight back against the fast starting Thoroughbreds to claim a six-point overtime nail-biter.
Trailing all night against a fired up Melton, Casey Cavaliers had to dig deep to get back into the contest after Melton’s three-man offence Blake Allison (31 points), Ivan Harris (26 points) and Jeff Crowe (16 points) rattled off early headaches.
“They had the better of us really for three quarters,” Casey coach Stewart Baird said.
“They always have a pretty vocal crowd and the drive over there and it took us a while to get going.
“We were worrying about stuff we have no control of and needed to get back to what we’ve been doing.”
The Cav-alry arrived in the second half as Casey clamped down defensively on the Thoroughbreds.
Brent Hobba (24 points, 13 rebounds) and Ben Louis (23 points) in particular savoured their defensively minded tasks to negate Melton’s finest piercing them on the scoreboard.
From there it was a matter of time before the Cavs sparked into top gear – rattling off 23-18 in the final term to force overtime before tearing away to take the 101-95 triumph.
“Defensive efforts were really important – Brent Hobba did a great job on Cameron McCallum – he’s their big and having a great year,” Baird said. “Ben Louis – despite being six or seven centimetres undersize – did a really good job on their import (Ivan Harris) and almost kept him scoreless through the last quarter which was really important.
“We locked down defensively and it sounds a bit cliche, but the history of our season will show that when we play good defence we create great offence.
“Our great D sets us up then the offence takes care of itself.”
Casey’s win snared the Division 1 Watson Conference number one seed heading into finals and another win – either this week heading out on Saturday night to Warrandyte before hosting Camberwell in a first-versus-second showdown to end their inaugural Division 1 home and away campaign.
“You always want winning form coming into finals, but if you’ve got winning form from games that are really tough, it’s that much more beneficial,” Baird said.
“Really pleased with the win but I was pleased that they were able to lock away first place in our conference.
“If we can get one more win then we’ll lock away first place overall, which could be important come grand final time and if we get the W we equal our best ever regular season with 17 wins.
“You can’t help but be proud of what the guys have achieved in their first year up in the higher division.”
The Cavaliers women are at risk of elimination from Big V Division 2 finals contention after a 54-74 loss to Mornington. Sitting one win back from Melbourne University and Coburg, Casey can keep its season alive – at least theoretically alive – with a win over Melbourne University on Saturday night at home before hoping on remaining results to fall their way.
The Cavs’ Youth Men have no such concerns about making finals – sitting second in the division following an 83-68 win over Melton on the back of a whopping 37-point, 10-rebound haul from Alistair Parker.
The Youth Men face Corio Bay at home on Saturday in their last match of the home-and-away season.
