The relieved Regulators (including team mascot Dillon) after the win.The Regulators last night used their get out of jail free card to defeat Team-Xtreme 23-19 in an un-impressive performance.
After a solid start running away to an 8-2 lead thanks mainly to some impressive offensive ball movement and tight defense, the Regulators ended the half leading 17-8.
With 14 minutes remaining and the score at 21 –10 the lights went out at the Albert Park stadium, an incident akin to the St.Kilda v Essendon match at Waverley Park in the mid 90’s. When play resumed and the lights back on, Team-Xtreme made a second half surge using the incident to their advantage for a quick 9-0 run.
With a minute and a half to go and the scores at 21-19, it looked as though the Regulators were about to pull defeat from the jaws of victory when Ben Torrance nailed 2 timely free throws after a signature drive to the basket to put the win beyond the grasp of the pumped up Xtreme side.
Rueben showed plenty early in the match, but an undisciplined technical foul with 4 minutes remaining took the shine off an impressive performance.
The surprise package of the evening came from Simon who showed he is worth every dollar of the big money it took to bring him out of retirement. Roopa and new recruit Paul, although not troubling the scorers were tight in defence and forced plenty of turnovers and were instrumental in the victory.
Andrew and Ben were both well below their best but did enough to ensure the team came up with the points in the end.
When questioned about the victory, captain Andrew replied, “It was a game of 2 halves”.
With the Matts’ Leonard and Owens in Asia on national duty and due to return early next month, the Regulators can only improve as the season progresses, and may even come out of the wilderness to compete in their first finals campaign in quite a few years.
