Froling Lifts Hawks to Drought Breaking Win

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

A career-best night from Sam Froling has lifted the Illawarra Hawks to a drought breaking win and handed Melbourne United a fifth consecutive loss with Monday night's 93-79 triumph.

The Hawks were playing for the first time since last Sunday's 34-point loss at the hands of the South East Melbourne Phoenix which was their ninth consecutive loss.

However, Melbourne arrived at WIN Entertainment Centre on their own four-game losing slide so both teams were desperate for a win, and it was the Hawks who maintained a degree of control most of the way.

It proved to be Froling who was the main difference. He had 16 points of his own in the first quarter with the Hawks putting up 31 in their best opening term of NBL23.

They were able to maintain their advantage the rest of the way to win by 14 for their first victory since beating the Phoenix back on October 6.

It's a tough blow for United who have now lost five straight to be 5-10 with their playoff aspirations slipping away as they struggled in the absence again of Isaac Humphries and Shea Ili.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Career high 29 and counting for <a href="https://twitter.com/samfroling_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@samfroling_</a> ???<br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/fWdqX4AoW7">pic.twitter.com/fWdqX4AoW7</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1599708683511877634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Froling ended the evening with a career-best 29 points for Illawarra to go with nine rebounds on shooting 11/17 from the floor despite fouling out with four minutes to play.

That was on the back of Peyton Siva also fouling out early in the fourth after five points and seven assists, but Illawarra had plenty of others stepping up.

Michael Frazier II impressed in his second game with 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists while Tyler Harvey finished strongly for 15 points and two assists.

Davo Hickey continued his emergence with another 10 points, three rebounds and two assists with Deng Deng contributing 11 points, nine boards and three steals, and Mangok Mathiang seven points and five rebounds.

Hawks coach Jacob Jackomas was proud of his team for sticking tough and getting some reward for effort.

"Obviously having a full deck of cards in regard to player personnel does help," Jackomas said.

"I've been saying it for a long period of time and we've been unlucky with the guys in the room because they are putting in the work.

"I'm just happy for them that they can get a little bit rewarded tonight, but as much as we celebrate that, we need to make sure we keep moving forward and keep doing it for our fans and ourselves.

"If we play like that and if the results come our way, then they come our way and if they don't, we just want to hold our heads up high proud every game."

It was a night where Chris Goulding hit 3/8 from beyond the arc with the third of those being his 1000th in his 396th NBL appearance. He's the 11th player to do it in league history and he scored 13 points for the evening.

Rayjon Tucker delivered 27 points on 10/18 shooting from the floor including 4/8 from deep for Melbourne as well with Marcus Lee adding 10 points and six rebounds, and Xavier Rathan-Mayes nine points.

United coach Dean Vickerman paid tribute to the efforts of Froling for the Hawks, but also wasn’t happy they contributed to him getting going and just couldn’t find enough rhythm at either end.

"The things that we thought we had the ability to take away from them we didn’t do a good enough job, and the delivery of their passes to Sam was exceptional," Vickerman said.

"I thought that was an area we should have been so much better in with the ball screens, but he also made two threes in that patch there and he probably had made two threes the whole year up to then.

"But good on him, he's capable of doing those things and we gave him the confidence with giving him some easy early ones. We're a team that fluctuates right now.

"We have patches where I think we're pretty good, but any time we made a little fightback and got close, it's either a defensive error or a turnover, a mixed box out or one of those effort things you have to do and have a commitment to. We just didn’t finish plays there for a while."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">CG 1000 ?<br><br>This one is special.<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/CojQUGmb7D">pic.twitter.com/CojQUGmb7D</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1599693036048375811?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Hawks made a flying start to lead 6-2 with a putback from Deng Deng and the other four points coming from Sam Froling.

United got going, though, with a couple of triples to Rayjon Tucker, Chris Goulding hitting the 998th of his career and then Tucker finishing in transition to put the visitors up 13-9.

The Hawks fired back, though, and it was all through Froling who produced the best individual opening quarter of the season. He hit a couple of threes along the way to his 16 points before Illawarra scored 10 straight points.

That saw the home team lead by eight and they were still up 31-25 by quarter-time with the Hawks advantage out to 10 against through Deng and Peyton Siva to open the second term.

Melbourne again responded including Goulding hitting the 1000th three of his career to bring the margin back to three before two more consecutive buckets to Froling took him to 21 points on the night already.

From there Illawarra went into half-time leading 53-45 with the 22 points from Froling and shooting 58 per cent from the floor as a team opposed to Melbourne's 43.

Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Tucker combined for the first seven points of the second half for Melbourne to quickly close the gap to one, but the Hawks continued to have all the answers.

Deng drained a three and then Froling scored on a three-point play and Michael Frazier topped off an 8-0 run.

Tyler Harvey then knocked down a couple of threes as part of another 10-2 Hawks streak that saw them take a 75-63 advantage into three quarter-time.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DENG WITH THE PUTBACK ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/cnx3TCFssS">pic.twitter.com/cnx3TCFssS</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1599697666098593792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

It took more than two minutes into the fourth quarter for either team to score a field goal and it was a tip-in for Illawarra from Mangok Mathiang to keep the home team up 13.

While Tucker kept Melbourne's score ticking over, they could make no inroads and Harvey finished strongly after his co-captain Froling fouled out for the Hawks to cruise to the 14-point win.

The Hawks are back in action on Thursday night on the road to the South East Melbourne Phoenix while Melbourne will host the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 9

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 93 (Froling 29, Frazier 16, Harvey 15)

MELBOURNE UNITED 79 (Tucker 27, Goulding 13, Lee 10)

BOX SCORE