By Jevan Collins
We saw 2 new champions crowed in the NBL1 West with the Cockburn Cougars winning their first woman’s title and The Geraldton Buccaneers winning the men’s to move onto next weekend’s national championship in Joondalup.
Woman’s
Cockburn Cougars V.S Willetton Tigers
The Cockburn Cougars and The Willetton Tigers both entered the Grand Final on Friday night, with the cougars doing it the easy was with a 20 point over Mandarah in the prelim, but the tigers on the other hand did it the hard way with a 3-point comeback victory over Rockingham to book a spot in the big dance.
Willetton were making their third appearance in 3 years lead by their spiritual leader Desiree Kelley and MVP Alex Sharp, the cougars were making their first grand final appearance who was also led by captain Kristy Whitfield and defensive player of the year Sarah Mortensen.
In both their meetings in 2023 both games have been blowouts to the home side, but you could just tell this was going to be a tight tussle from the word go with both teams having momentum shifts with the tigers getting out to 10 points in the middle of the third.
But there was no stopping the cougars, the tigers throw everything at them but in the end, Cockburn were too strong running over the top by 7 points, New Perth Lynx signee Stephine Gorman won finals MVP honours with 19 points, 3 assists and 2 steals, to bring home the first women’s championship back to the den.
Men’s
Geraldton Buccaneers V.S Joondalup Wolves
It was two grand final appearances in two years for the Buccs after losing last year’s decider to Rockingham. The Joondalup Wolves finished 6th on the ladder of had a Cinderella run to the Grand Final beating last year’s champs Rocko to book a date with Gero, either the wolves run was going to continue or there was a title heading up north to Geraldton.
The Buccs entered the game with all NBL1 West first teamer Malik Meunier and 6th man of the year Johnny Narkle, the wolves also had their very own NBL1 West first teamer in the form of Quintin Dove and the big man Ionannis Dimakopoulos.
In 2023 both teams went 1-1 against each other, but it was the underdog wolves who got the early jump early in the game, like the woman’s grand final there were momentum shift galore it was Joondalup who took a lead into half time. Geraldton needed a response in the third and they did by going on an insane scoring run.
It was the veteran and skipper of the Buccs Aaron Ralph who hit the biggest 3 of his careers in the final quarter which was the final dagger in the wolves as Geraldton run out 6 point winners to take home there third championship and second title win over Joondalup in 5 years after getting the job done in 2019. Johhny Narkle was named MVP with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 4 steals, it was also a special night for Matthew Wundenberg who celebrated game 499 and added another championship ring to his collection.