IT is pretty safe to say Wyndham is a contender. The Big V Men’s Championship competition continued over the weekend, with Round 4 delivering five matches of basketball, some of the best Victoria has to offer. It was a round of big wins, with a number of sides claiming triumphs of a significant margin. One of those teams was Wyndham, who was able to assert their place atop the standings with six wins from six outings. Their second match of the round was a blockbuster matchup against Sunbury at Boardman Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Both sides came into the contest undefeated, and the winner was set to finish the round at the head of the table. In the end, it was Wyndham who proved far too strong for its opponents, claiming a 21-point win on the road to cement itself as the team to beat moving forward.

Sunbury (74) def. by Wyndham (95)

First Half

The home side got off to a cracking start, rallying behind the efforts of Ishmael Sanders, who led the way for Sunbury with nine points in the opening term. Wyndham was suddenly on the back foot, unable to get its offence matching that of the opposition and trailing by six points at the first break. Quarter number two was much better from the visitors, with Wyndham firing on all cylinders with ball in hand. Sunbury was still able to score 20 points in the term, but defensively, was unable to contain its opponents as Wyndham delivered a 30-point term behind plenty of contributors to take a two-point lead into the main break.

Second Half

The momentum continued to roll in Wyndham’s favour, with no one player carrying the team as they kept their dynamic offence rolling. No standout player meant that Sunbury’s defence was unable to predict who would end up with the ball, and it often resulted in some very good looks for the Wyndham offence. The lead was stretched out to nine heading into the last, and it only got worse from there. Wyndham showed no signs of slowing up in the final term, with Maurice Howard leading the way as the margin ballooned out to 21 by the time the final buzzer sounded on a strong win for the visitors, while Sunbury was handed its first defeat of season 2022.

Standout Performers

For the victors, Howard ended up leading the way with a team-high 25 points thanks to a strong last quarter performance. He had some solid help from teammate Keenan Gorski, who delivered an impressive 21 points off the bench, a total that was boosted by his strong shooting from behind the arc. For Sunbury, Sanders did just about all he could, pouring in a game-high 27 points, but was short of scoreboard assistance from teammates.

Across the courts

Here are the remaining results from a cracking Round 4:

Chelsea (74) def. by Blackburn (87)
Western Port (70) def. by McKinnon (95)
Wyndham (101) def. Camberwell (68)
Hume (92) def. Chelsea (65)