By Tara Murray
Hume City Broncos will be keen to forget its exit from the Big V women’s state championship finals.
After an impressive season, during which they finished equal on wins in second place, the Broncos were knocked out in the semi-finals by the Werribee Devils.
There weren’t many positives for the Broncos on Saturday night – they lost all four quarters on the way to a 73-51 loss.
Their last quarter was their worst, scoring just eight points.
Broncos coach Dee Butler said it was a bitterly disappointing way to exit the finals.
“It was awful,” she said. “Credit to them [Werribee] they wanted it more than us. We wanted it too, but didn’t perform at our best on the night.
“We had little contributions from players who had been reliable throughout the whole season.
“We went away from what was working with Werribee’s pressure.
“Werribee are a class team and even when we play our best, they are tough to beat.”
You only had to look at the statistics to see where it went wrong for the Broncos.
The Broncos lost the rebounds 50-33, despite it usually being a strength.
Known for a spread of points scorers, they had just two players score double figures. Nicole Zammit top-scored with 13 points while Bianca Babic had 11 points.
Imports Azia Bishop [zero points] and BreAnna Brock [three points], who had averaged 32 points between them a game, didn’t have much impact at all.
Butler said it was frustrating to watch.
“We had a size advantage and needed to have some possession,” she said.
“We didn’t look after the ball as well as we should have.
“We needed some more impact from the post players.”
Butler said Jessica Azzopardi, who provided a spark off the bench, was the one positive.
Butler said it was hard to explain what had happened on Saturday night.
She said an interrupted back half of the season hadn’t helped.
“We had four players miss games and three diagnosed with influenza a few weeks ago.
“Coach out as well. Luck didn’t go our way.
“It was a disappointing way to finish.”
Butler said the season end didn’t do justice to the group and she was hoping they would look back at the season as a whole as a good one.
“Sport can be cruel,” she said. “It was a really poor game and it’s cut-throat.
“Hopefully we’ve got the maturity to reflect on what was a great season and reflect on the good games.”
It was good news for the men’s side which is through to the grand final series.
