QABL weekend wrap

Yes, I have been VERY slack with blogging over the last week. It is the off-season, but I'll try and make up for it over the next few days.

Starting with a quick wrap of the QABL games on the weekend. Not a good weekend for the Brisbane teams with the Northside Wizards dropping both their games on the extremely tough far north Queensland roadtrip and the Brisbane Capitals losing one and winning one on the road.

The Wizards were always going to find it hard taking on two of the top five teams on the road. Game 1 was their chance to steal a win but they went down 119 - 131 verse the Townsville Heat. For the Heat it was a pair of young Crocs that did the damage, Michael Cedar with 36 points (including 8 triples), 7 boards and Cameron Tovey with 21 points (including a surprisingly good 5 of 6 from the line), 16 boards. For the Wizards, Cameron Tragardh had 45 points, 8 boards and Tim Coenraad had 28 points, 7 boards, 6 assists. Adam Gibson didn't make the roadtrip but Josh Darragh filled in nicely with 19 points, 6 boards, 5 assists.

Against the league leading Cairns Marlins, the Wizards went down 89 - 108. For the Marlins, Kerry Williams led the way with 31 points, Aaron Grabau had 23 points, 10 boards and Dean Brebner had 23 points, 6 boards. For the Wizards, Tragardh was "restricted" to just 35 points, 9 boards and Coenraad had 20 points, 7 boards.

The Wizards will looking to bounce back next weekend when they host the second place Rockhampton Rockets at my old stomping ground, the Boondall Sports Centre.

QABL - Wizards lose??

I was shocked to check on the QABL website and see that the star-studded Northside Wizards lost on the weekend. They have been on a tear of late, just destroying teams on a 9 win 1 loss stretch so it was a surprise to see that they lost to the cross-town rival Brisbane Capitals.

The surprises kept coming when I saw that the scoring machine that is Cameron Tragardh didn't actually score 50 points! He wasn't that far off tho with 41 points and 12 boards. Tim Coenraad showed he's human after some impressive form of late, apparently well contained by former Brisbane Bullet Ben Castle. Tim had just 13 points & 7 boards, about half of what we're used to from him of late. Adam Gibson was rock-solid with 24, 6 & 6 as was Shane Davis with 27, 5 & 4 including 7 triples.

For the Capitals, as mentioned Ben Castle seemed to have found a time-machine back to 2005 when he was last cut for the Australian national team. Ben had 26 points, 11 boards to go with the defensive job he did on Coenraad. Another development player for the Bullets, Michael Shaw was solid with 19 points, 6 boards, 4 assists and Mark Ferguson (who I don't know) had a season high 29 points, 7 boards.

The Wizards have a tough weekend ahead on the road against the Townsville Heat and the league-leading Cairns Marlins.