By Tara Murray
Whittlesea Pacers made a successful return to Big V women’s youth league finals on Saturday.
Playing youth league finals for the first time since 2009, the Pacers put in one of their best performances of the season to account for the Blackburn Vikings, 70-42 in a division 2 elimination final.
Pacers’ coach Shannon Bodley was thrilled with the performance.
“We started off really well and set the game up in the first quarter,” he said.
“We then won the next two quarters.
“The trouble of us all season has been being able to win all four quarters. We discussed it during the game.
“We were able to string four strong quarters together.”
With the margin blowing out, the Pacers were able to share the court time around. Every player played at least seven minutes, with no player playing over 30 minutes.
Bodley said being able to share the minutes around would help later in other finals.
“It was good to get more minutes into players than they would normally would get,” he said.
“We were able to rest some bodies. We don’t want to rely on five or six players and run them into the ground.”
Last-Tear Poa top scored with 21 points after coming off the bench.
With the Pacers’ women’s side knocked out of the finals, Poa who has been playing for both sides will be able to fully play with the youth side.
Bodley said while it was disappointing the women’s side had been knocked out, it was a bonus to have Poa with their side.
He said while Poa was the standout on the scoreboard, everyone stepped up and played their role.
The Pacers now play Pakenham Warriors in a knock out semi final.
Bodley, who took the Pacers women’s side to a division 1 title in 2015 when they were underdogs, said anything could happen.
“I’ve been in this situation before when no one considered us a threat.
“Anything can happen and we’ll take it week by week.”
