Rollers Remain Undefeated

After their last win against Spain 75-59 on Saturday night, the Australian Rollers continue their winning streak by defeating arch-rivals, USA 65-49, in their Group A match at the North Greenwhich Arena last night.

A four quarter effort from the Rollers left USA with no answers, with Shaun Norris (16), Justin Eveson (15), Brad Ness (13) and Tristan Knowles (11) all reaching doubles figures for the reigning Paralympic champions.

WAIS athlete Justin Eveson was superb for Australia, pulling in 16 rebounds to go with his 15 points, falling one assist short of a triple double in the process.

Rollers head coach Ben Ettridge was understandably delighted with his team’s performance, but singled out one un-sung hero for special praise.

“The highlight for me was Jannick Blair going for the free throw line in the clutch. That kid’s come such a long way. For him to be sitting in front of a crowd like this, cool as a cucumber, that shows he believes in our process and we trust him with it. He’s come on board in the last 18 months as one of our juniors. He played in the world under-23s in 2009 and really adapted to the professionalism that we want.”

“Meeting that crew (the USA) in a gold medal game – we’d be happy with that. The pools are starting to sort themselves out, the top four teams are starting to really show their class but with Turkey, Spain, Germany and Poland there’s a good six or seven teams in the mix,” he said.

The Australians play their last group match on tonight against Italy.