The Tall Ferns have started their William Jones Cup campaign in impressive style, with a 75-52 win over India at the Changhua Gymnasium in Taiwan.
The five day tournament opens up a busy period for the Ferns, culminating in the Asia Cup at the end of the month, and while the Kiwis are pleased with the opening win, they know there’s room for improvement.
“For a first up game we will take a 23 point win. But we still have a lot of areas to improve on, so against South Korea we get another chance to better ourselves and build towards the Asia Cup in Bangalore,” coach Kennedy Kereama said.
Guard Micaela Cocks led the way for the Tall Ferns in the first quarter, failing to miss a shot as she bagged 12 points on the way to a 24-15 quarter time lead. The Tall Ferns extended that lead in the second quarter, to take a 42-26 advantage into halftime.
The match tightened up somewhat in the second half, but it was still the Tall Ferns dominating proceedings, and that allowed Kereama to give court time to all eleven members of the squad.
“It was good to be able to give all of our bench some valuable minutes and give some of our debutants a good taste of international basketball,” Kereama said.
The Tall Ferns won every quarter on their way to the 23 point victory, paced by 21 points from Cocks, while Chevannah Paalvast chimed in with 15 points, and Jillian Harmon added 11, to go with her seven rebounds and six assists.
Kalani Purcell excelled at the defensive end of the court, where she picked up six of her ten rebounds, while also adding five steals and two blocks.
“Micaela was a standout along with Chevannah, Jillian and Kalani with her rebounding efforts,” Kereama said.
“For us our ability to get out in transition and score easy baskets from our defence was good. We did a good job of forcing them into a number of turnovers which resulted in transition layups.”
The Tall Ferns meet South Korea in their second match of the William Jones Cup tomorrow (Thursday) at 8pm NZT.
