Basketball: Slammers remain winless

The South West Slammers will be left to rue their inability to finish games after suffering two close State Basketball League defeats at the weekend.

A 10-point loss to Perth Redbacks at Eaton on Friday followed by a 18-point beating at the hands of East Perth at the Morley Recreation Centre on Saturday will be unjust reflections on games that were still on the line deep in the final quarter.

After five rounds of SBL competition South West are the only winless side and despite promising much in 2011 their win/loss ledger f 0-7 is little improvement on years gone by.

On Friday night the Slammers stayed neck-in-neck with Perth for most of the evening — scores were level at quarter time and the home side trailed by just two points at the long break 46-48.

Eventually, Perth guard Ryan Neill’s 42 points proved telling while big forward Michael Vigor also chimed in with 24.

For the Slammers, Nick Freer starred with 24 points while Matt Smith and Tyler Hickert both hit 21.

Against the Eagles on Saturday the Slammers trailed by as much as 13 points early in the last quarter before closing the margin to three points as Trent Worthington , returning from injury to play his first game in a fortnight, Jeremy Paull and Cory Richardson all scored from beyond the arc.

Freer again dominated or the Slammers with 34 points and 11 rebounds while Matt Smith (24 points, 10 rebounds), Worthington and Richardson (both 14 points) also impressed, but it was not enough.

For East Perth, point guard Daniel Thomas hit 27 points, while Tom Jervis (22 points, 20 rebounds), Jarrod Balcombe (26 points) and Corey Easley (20 points) dominated the scoring.

After the losses coach Carl Catalano lamented the way his side squandered opportunities to take the lead late in both games.

‘‘It’s disappointing not to get the win but we are playing the way we want to play, it’s just a matter of taking that next step to take the lead with five minutes to go and then push on from that,’’ he said.

‘‘Both games only blew out in the end because we had to foul.

‘‘When you send them to the line at the end of the game it’s going to blow out a bit butwe had to give it a go.’’