THE more things change ...
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The Albury-Wodonga Lady Bandits suffered a 105-69 smacking at the hands of the Bendigo Lady Braves in their SEABL season opener at the Lauren Jackson Sports Centre last night.
A 33-14 opening quarter from Bendigo meant the Border outfit was running uphill thereafter and although they showed flashes of promise, could not string enough consistent stretches together to trouble the high-powered Lady Braves.
Bendigo enjoyed a wealth of scoring options, with all five starters notching double-digit totals, led by Kerryn Harrington’s 22 points, including five three-pointers.
She had plenty of support, with Stephanie Bairstow and Stacia Robertson both adding 18 points and Tessa Lavey and Kelly Wilson 17 apiece.
The Lady Bandits were led by playmaker Ashton Eaton, who scored 12 of her 14 points in the first half.
Import Kristina Baltic added 12 points on debut, as did forward Teyla Evans but Ali Bouman was well-held to eight points and four rebounds.
Lady Bandits coach Michael Brookens could find very few positives from the lopsided defeat.
“I was always worried our defence would be our Achilles heel,” he said.
“We don’t have good awareness, we allowed their movement to get us discombobulated and not know what we’re doing.
“And we didn’t recognise where the three-point shooters were and get out on them, Harrington was just on fire.
“Offensively we did well when we moved the ball but yeah, not too much to be happy about.”
The Lady Bandits opened the scoring on a drive from Eaton but in the blink of an eye the visitors had themselves a 16-4 lead and the game, for all intents and purposes, was done.
Although Albury- Wodonga did well to claw back the deficit to 10 points in the second period, the Lady Bandits still went into the long break with a 55-40 scoreline casting a long shadow.
Bendigo came out snarling to open the second half and in a carbon copy of the opening quarter, pushed the margin back out to 83-55.
The Lady Bandits battled to the end, but the earlier errors ensured the main interest was in the final margin, with rookie duo Carly Perso and Olivia Storer both showing encouraging signs.