For the 10th time, Seymour has been crowned the Country Basketball League North East Men’s division champions.
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In an historic evening for the club, the Blasters ousted Wallan in a game full of huge momentum swings, clinging on in a nail-biting finish to claim an 82-78 win, becoming the first team since the formation of the CBL to reach 10 titles.
Coach Craig Hockley, who has presided over all 10 titles, was understandably thrilled with the result, which came in front of a packed Seymour Sports and Aquatic Centre.
“It’s a really great achievement by the team,” he said.
“It was very rewarding, actually, finishing the season off with a win.”
But even a coach of Hockley’s experience and calibre couldn’t escape the fact that it was a close-run finish.
Having controlled the game after half-time, opening up a lead as big as 22 points early in the final term, the Blasters very nearly let it slip.
“The last quarter was pretty tight,” Hockley admitted.
“We had a 19-point lead (at three-quarter time) and then we just couldn't score a basket in the last quarter and they were coming down and scoring threes.
“It got really tight at the end, so the pressure was pretty high, but we managed to see it through and come away with the win.”
That three-quarter time margin of 19 points was really established in the first few minutes after half-time.
While Seymour had built an early lead, which at some stages was out to 12 points in the opening minutes of the second term, the Panthers seemed to find their groove as the main interval neared and, with a flurry of buckets as the clock wound down, reduced Seymour’s lead to just four points by the half.
But it was a different story as the two sides returned to the court after emerging from their huddles.
Wallan scored the opening bucket of the half, cutting the margin to two points, but that was as close as the visiting side got.
Slowly but surely the Blasters pulled away, turning the ball over with fierce defensive pressure, before converting at will in attack.
“We really focused on the first three or four minutes of the third quarter, which we’ve done all year,” Hockley said of the start to the second half.
“We had a bit of a lead (at half-time) and we just wanted to build on that lead, but we didn’t change anything around too much, just made sure our defence was working hard.
“And then Tyler Best shot the lights out in that quarter and gave us that 19-point buffer.”
While Best was on fire in the third, scoring eight of his total 29 points to help Seymour to a 70-51 lead at three-quarter time, the Blasters’ hot hand was cooled significantly in the fourth.
Seymour was being hunted in the final term, at one stage giving up 19 unanswered points as the Panthers roared back to within two, but Hockley used all of his experience to assuage the fears of his troops.
“You have to call a couple of timeouts, which we did, and just try and remind them that we need to stay calm,” he said.
“We had some good looks in the last quarter, but we just couldn’t finish.
“I just said, you know, we just have to keep our composure and make sure if we get a chance to score, we finish it, and try not to get carried away too much by the noise of the crowd and everything, which was pretty enormous. I think they nearly had 600 people there at the end.
“In the end, Jesse Brock scored a couple of baskets underneath the rim, which just gave us that breathing space at the end.”
In a tense finale, the Blasters hung on to win by four points, much to the delight of the huge home crowd and despite being outscored 12-27 in the final term.
Despite the now double-digit titles he has won as the Blasters’ mentor, that roaring home crowd for the grand final was a first for Hockley.
“I’ve coached the 10 titles and we’ve never had a grand final at home before, this was the first time,” he said.
“We’ve had to travel some distances and we’ve always had pretty good support when we’ve played away for the other grand finals.
“But this one, having it at home, it was really special, and to see the amount of people there supporting us was enormous and in the end it certainly helped us.”
Best was named grand final MVP for his 29-point performance, the most of anyone on the court, while Brock (17) was the only other Blaster to score double digits, with another five players sharing the load and contributing between five and 10 points.
As celebrations continued into the night, memories of the other titles were reminisced upon, with the enormity of what the club had achieved taking a little while to hit Hockley.
“Saturday night after the game, we went down to the Seymour Club and had a few quiet drinks and everything, going through all the titles,” he said.
“It's actually my 11th. We did win one in 1996, in what used to be called the CBC, the Country Basketball Conference, and then in 2003, it converted to the CBL, so I’ve got one more than some of the other guys.
“But looking back, well, I don’t know, I’m sort of lost for words here a bit. It’s unbelievable.
“It’s rewarding for a town of this size as well. Some of the towns we play up against, it’s rewarding to get those wins as a town of 6000 people playing against other towns three or four times the size of us. It’s a pretty enormous achievement.”