Taupo beaten but not disgraced...

Taupo Times, Volume 23, Issue 47, 13 June 1974, Page 10

Taupo beaten but not disgraced...

A large Taupo crowd saw its representative side soundly beaten by the touring St Clair men's team from South Australia on Monday night. St Clair, having been beaten the previous day by Rotorua, was out to make every move a scoring one. Consequently, the side provided some fast and often spectacular basketball. From the starting whistle St Clair' s first-string players jumped to a clear 10 point lead.

Taupo's M. McMahon was the only local player who had settled to score points at that stage. Two quick time-outs saw Taupo settle down a little better and for most of the remainder of the first half the score did not widen any further. D. van der Griend and E. Rademakers began to gain more control of the offensive rebounds. Van der Griend bucketed a high percentage of his shots to keep Taupo in the game. However, this was not to last as the more experienced Taupo players ran into foul trouble, with two of them on four fouls before half-time. This placed more responsibility on the shorter Taupo players who, although generally playing above themselves, could not keep up the pressure. At half-time St Clair led by 27 points. When play resumed van der Griend was first to go, fouled out four minutes into the second half. He was followed by McMahon just four minutes later. Without these two, Taupo's strength weakened and G. Harvey and N. Cambie were left to carry Taupo's game. Cambie at this stage was

the anchor man in trying to control the Taupo attack. Harvey, too, was giving the game everything he had. His defensive capabilities at least curbed the flow of the fast St Clair breaks that were becoming more frequent. St Clair kept substituting players to keep the pace up. These fresh players were much too fast for the tired Taupo men — and the scores crept further and further apart. However, it was very encouraging to see the young Taupo juniors, Rademakers, H. Hockey and A, Watters, still in the game with a lot of determination to carry on as hard as possible until the final whistle. Although the final score was 123-73 to St Clair, the younger, more inexperienced Taupo team did not disgrace itself. With a few more tough games under its belt it should become a formidable team on the local representative scene this year. Top scorers were. — St Clair: Romain 24, Christie 18, Broodaikoff 12, Seale 12, Fricker 12. Taupo: Van der Griend 21, McMahon 14, Rademakers 12, Harvey 10.