BATHURST Goldminers compounded the troubles of bottom-placed Youth League Basketball outfit Springwood Scorchers on Saturday in a huge win.
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The visiting Goldminers struggled to get going over the opening quarter but once the cobwebs were blown out Bathurst ran away 104-42 winners.
Victory has the Goldminers fourth on the table and nestled well among the top seven clubs in the competition – who are all starting to break away from the rest of the contenders.
Matt Gray top scored for the Goldminers on 33 points. Kobe Mansell (16) and Nathan Germech (14) were the others who hit the mark for Bathurst.
Goldminers were up 8-5 midway through a low-scoring first quarter and called a timeout.
At that stage Bathurst coach Andrew Osborn stressed the need to be patient in choosing a shooting option.
From that point on the Goldminers rarely lost their rhythm.
“Things weren’t working for us. It wasn’t so much that we were playing poorly, it’s just that we were taking the wrong final option. We sorted that out and we got a good win,” Osborn said.
“We went out there with an aim to score 25 points and restrict them to 15 points a quarter, and we managed to achieve both of those.
“Defensively we were very, very good. We were able to maintain that level of defence no matter what five players were on the court for us.
“We were able to take the defence that we had against Illawarra and bring it into this game.”
After the Goldminers timeout the Bathurst men allowed just one more Scorchers basket for the remainder of the opening quarter.
That pressure didn’t let off in the following term as Springwood were restricted to just 15 points at half-time. Goldminers had 46 to their name.
Goldminers exceeded the expectations of their coach by the time the final whistle had sounded.
“I was hoping that we might be able to get to 100 but I would have been happy to keep them to around 60 to 65 points,” Osborn said.
“Getting our combinations working is something we’ve been mindful all of season. We knew it would be a number of games until we would get them to start clicking, and now it’s starting to happen."
Goldminers have one of their toughest games of the season coming up this Saturday when they play host to Moss Vale Magic, who bested Bathurst earlier in the year.