Cavs fall short

A GUTSY fourth-quarter comeback by the Cranbourne Cavaliers fell short on Saturday night as the Cavs stumbled to a five point loss at the Cranbourne Basketball Centre.
Trailing by 18-points at three-quarter time against the Horsham Hornets, coach Corey Smith called upon his bench players to lead the fourth-quarter revival – and they responded enthusiastically.
The bench combined for 21 points, as the home side went on a 20-2 run to level the score mid way through the final quarter.
Some poor turnovers gifted the Hornets with easy baskets and the visitors were able to regain the lead and hold onto it.
But Smith is taking plenty of positives from the performance. “We went on a 20-2 run to start the fourth quarter and I don’t know how that happened,” Smith said. “I gave them a bit of a positive at three-quarter time when I reminded them of the 20-point comeback in the youth game earlier in the year. I had my starters off and gave the bench a go and they got us on a really good run.”
Every player scored for the Cavs with many of the bench players playing some of their best basketball for the year. Youngster Jesse Henderson impressed Smith and finished with six points and two assists while big man Tim Shannon had eight rebounds and 10 points in his best game of the season.
The McMillan brothers were influential again with Jayden completing another double-double.
“I try and get everyone out there but we had such a good contribution from everyone this time,” Smith said. “The comeback was good but we need to put that type of pressure on at the start of games … we need to start building a lead and holding on to it.”
Cranbourne travels to Somerville this week to take on Western Port.
Smith believes his team is in with a good shot of beating Western Port, who are coming off a loss to Pakenham and could be without prominent scorer Shannan Davey.- Gavin Staindl