Round 5 Review
JCU Fire coach Shannon Seebohm won’t train his team too hard this week, not as a reward for Townsville’s tough effort on the road, rather, he simply doesn’t have the troops to do so, after more players picked up injuries during a taxing double header. Steph Reid hurt her shoulder against the Boomers while Tianna Hawkins and Mikaela Ruef rolled their ankles against Melbourne and Southside respectively, with the latter limping from the court barely a minute into Saturday’s night’s game. They join a casualty ward which already includes Zitina Aokuso and Morgan Yaeger but the trio’s stay may be brief with Seebohm bullish about their chances of facing Perth.
“Incredible effort from Steph and Tianna to tough it out against Southside, we really didn’t know what we would get out of them, so they’ll definitely be given time off this week to recover properly.”
“Obviously they probably wouldn’t have played as much as they did in that second game had we not lost Mikaela. She was immediately in a lot of pain but 24 hours later you know things were looking much better. She’s had some issues with this ankle before so we’ve got plenty of scans and images we can refer to, to make sure everything is structurally sound and we’re hoping she’ll be ok for Friday night.”
Townsville toppled the Flyers by 82-79 to split its round five results after being beaten by the boomers 84-78 despite playing well. The coach concedes the visitors probably should have returned home with two wins.
“We’re disappointed we let the lead slip against Melbourne we thought we played well enough in that first half to go on and get it done but just couldn’t get over the line in the end. But I think the girls showed a lot of grit to be able to grind out a win over Southside, all things considered.”
Karlie Samuelson led the way with a scintillating shooting display. The import dropped six three pointers from nine attempts on her way to a game high 26 points. Seebohm stopped himself subbing the American out, a couple of times.
“We didn’t plan for her to play the full forty minutes but every time we went to give her a rest she hit a three, so naturally we were like ok cancel that sub. But no she did a great job.”
Seebohm singled out Krystal Leger Walker and Lara McSpadden for doing dirty work which doesn’t create headlines.
“Krystal collected and offensive rebound we managed to convert after southside made a bit of a run at so just little plays like that just helped us get that win and Lara she played 34 minutes had great energy, played great defence and she was all over the boards.”
An orange army of fans will bring energy to the Fire Pit on Friday night. Tickets to Townsville’s tussle with the Lynx are available.