Your Sandringham Sabres will enter the NBL1 South Grand Final in some hot form after beating the Diamond Valley Eagles 107-86 at home in Saturday night’s preliminary final.
The Sabres finished the regular season in fourth position before knocking off the Knox Raiders in the qualifying final at the State Basketball Centre in what will now turn out to be a Grand Final preview.
Sandringham earned the week off with that win before hosting the preliminary final at Southern Basketball Stadium with the Eagles also building some impressive momentum to meet them there.
Coming off the week’s break, Sandringham blew the game wide open with a monstrous first quarter with 40 points to already be leading by 18 at quarter-time.
The game was all but over from that point with the Sabres ending up leading by as much as 21 points in the second stanza, 33 in the third and then ending up winning by 21 to book in their Grand Final appearance next week against the Raiders who they beat in the qualifying final.
Ben Ayre continued his standout form for Sandringham ahead of his NBL season at the South East Melbourne Phoenix. He produced 27 points and eight assists with 9/20 shooting from the floor and 6/6 from the free-throw line.
Campbell Blogg also delivered 19 points, three rebounds and three assists, CJ Asuncion-Byrd 18 points, four rebounds and two assists, Tom Koppens 15 points and six boards, and Kaylan Kitto 11 points.
Dane Pineau also put up nine points, 25 rebounds, four blocks and two assists ahead of his NBL season at the New Zealand Breakers.
