Tonight was all about supporting the Mellowpuff Trust. There was a great curtain raiser against Team Pink and Team Black. According to Terry Long, Trustee, “Team Pink won in humorous and controversial circumstances.” It was all about bringing people together to enjoy the basketball while enjoying friendship and fellowship.
A special guest for the evening was Jane Dingle, New Plymouth, who was playing basketball for the first time. Jane had nursed Terry’s daughter Melissa. Another guest was Haydn Langton, Opunake, who paid $700 through an auction, for the opportunity to have a starting spot in the curtain raiser.
For the main event the MountainAirs came out wearing a one-off strip supporting the Mellowpuff Trust and the crowd roared with approval.
Jack Leasure came out with lots to prove after last week’s disappointing foul out of the game in the closing minutes. He got the crowd excited with an impressive lay-up in the opening minutes going on to score 3/5 three pointers and a very impressive 12/12 free throws (which included 7/8 technical fouls).
Link Abrams imposed presence throughout the entire game shooting 4/6 field goals as well as claiming 5 defensive rebounds.
Newcomer to the team Kenny Gabriel made his 2.09m presence well-known shooting 9/15 field goals, 2/5 three pointers, 5/6 free throws along with 14 defensive rebounds. He also managed to swat away 3 blocks.
With the score at 73-65 to the MountainAirs and 6.16 minutes on the clock, the Hawks threw everything into the game and bodies were flying all over the court and out of bounds. The crowd thought that some of the refs calls were questionable and loud “BOOs” resounded around the stadium.
Soon after, outstanding work by Aaron Bailey-Nowell and Brad Anderson saw the score leap to 80-73 and the departure of The Hawk’s Darko Cohadarevic, fouled out of the game.
Brian Greene got an unsportsmanlike foul on Aaron Bailey-Nowell and the stadium roof nearly blew off with appreciation for the call.
Paora Winitana made a deliberate foul and then got a technical foul for back chatting and shoving the ref. This caused Tad Baldwin to lose control and storm onto the court yelling at the ref. The crowd shouted their feelings and the noise was incredible. With 2.13 minutes on the clock and the score at 81-76 to the MountainAirs, the remonstrations continued with the Hawks’ Coach, Tad Baldwin eventually escorted from the stadium.
There were 8 free throws resulting from the debacle and Jack Leasure stepped up to the free throw line and after a little confusion with the final number, proceeded to sink 7 of them taking the score to 88-76.
The Hawks’ Brian Greene was next to exit the court fouled out of the game as tempers flared and bodies were flying in all directions again. Kenny Gabriel’s temper momentarily got the better of him but he was quickly pulled away by his team members. He showed his emotion by cutting through the defense and scoring with .24 seconds on the clock.
The final score was 101-86 to the MountainAirs.