Tall Ferns continue unbeaten start to William Jones Cup

Micaela Cocks

The Tall Ferns made it two wins from two outings at the William Jones Cup in Taiwan after defeating Korea 73-61 on Thursday. Ahead by 18 points at three-quarter time, the Kiwis gave valuable playing time to some of the less experienced players in the squad in the final period, enabling Korea to close to within 10 points. As she had the previous day in the win against the Philippines, it was Olympian Micaela Cocks (174-G-86, college: Oregon) that led the way with 20 points (7/9FG, 4/4FT) and it was the Kiwi captain that sunk free throws down the stretch to seal a second win in as many days. Stella Beck (183-G-95, college: St.Mary's, CA) and Penina Davidson (190-F-95, college: California) supported Cocks with 13 points apiece. Tessa Boagni (188-F-96, college: CSUN) had 10 points and Kalani Purcell was all hustle with seven points, nine rebounds, eight assists and a couple of steals. Tall Ferns coach Guy Molloy was pleased with his team's performance. "A very impressive first half set up a solid win today. We led comfortably at halftime and the margin remained around 20 points for most of the way after that. "We played most of our young players in the fourth quarter to give them some pressure experience and that gave the Koreans a little momentum to close the gap, but we were never under threat of losing. "We gave a very good defence display for most of the game and locked the opposition down quite well." Harbour Breeze forward Penina Davidson scored eight early points and with Stella Beck and Charlisse Leger-Walker (174-G-01) converting New Zealand's first two three point attempts, the Kiwis led 23-15 at quarter time. Cocks initiated the Kiwis scoring in the second frame by dropping a pair of triples and when Beck scored a brace of buckets the New Zealand lead was out to 41-25. Cocks, Davidson, and Beck were in double figures by halftime with the Tall Ferns holding a 45-31 lead. World No 18 ranked Korea fought back as the New Zealand scoring cooled off in the early stages of the third period - just two shots made from 11 attempts. New Zealand will face Chinese Taipei B on Friday and expect their opponents to play a lot of zone defence similar to Korea.
Courtesy of: stuff.co.nz