New faces hit the road with Gunners

The Gunners welcomed three new faces to the squad on Thursday; Alex Gynes from the Sydney Kings, Matt Andronicos and Jaecob Snow from the AIS.

The team travelled to Bendigo to face the conference champions Bendigo Braves on Saturday night.  With 2 new faces in the starting five, the boys matched the Braves intensity from the start. Thanks to some nice work from Jono Miller, the Gunners got out to an early lead. Braves import Daniel Horton responded with 8 first quarter points to gain the lead back at the first break. The Gunners were able to cut the lead to three but some costly turnovers saw margin out to 7 by half time. During the second half, the Gunners traded baskets with the Braves and couldn’t narrow the gap. The score blew out to 18 in the end. The score was not a true indication of a very intense  game and the boys walked off the court happy their effort and the output of our new recruits.

On Sunday, the Gunners  travelled to Melbourne to take on the Dandenong Rangers. Things didn’t get off to a good start. Veteran defender Joel Richardson received some friendly fire during warm up with a hit from Matt Andronicos’ elbow leaving him dazed for several minutes. Full court pressure defence from the Rangers caused 20 first half turnovers resulting in uncontested layups for the Rangers. The second half saw the Rangers shooting the ball at 60% for the game and the Gunners committing 35 turnovers and giving up 25 points from the foul line. Things got really bad when Gynes had to leave the court with concussion after taking a heavy fall on a layup. Gynes finished with 22 points and Jamie Mesman was the only other Gunner to reach double figures with 17.

The team have a lot of work to do before the next home game against Mt Gambier on Friday the 13^th of April. The break over Easter will give the Gunners time to train together as a team, work on defensive principals and tweak the offence to utilise the talents of the new recruits.