Blues' Jeremy Combs has the look of a champion

• Frankston Blues beat Eltham Wildcats 78-75 to win the NBL1 South men's championship
• Zak Cunningham had 10 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists in defeat
• Paige Bradley won Grand Final MVP with 20 points and 10 assists as Knox went back-to-back in blowout

Eltham guard Zak Cunningham put up a triple-double in the NBL1 South Grand Final on Saturday night, 10 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists at the State Basketball Centre, but it came to nothing as the Wildcats finished on the wrong end of a 78-75 result to the Frankston Blues.

Frankston led at every break and were never once ahead by enough to relax.

It was 20-17 at quarter-time and 41-33 at the main break, and then Eltham put 29 points on the board in the third quarter, the highest-scoring quarter by either side all night, to cut an eight-point deficit to a single point at 63-62. The Blues answered by winning the last quarter 15-13 and that was the championship.

Jeremy Combs was the reason they had anything left to hold. The Frankston big man finished with 21 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and three steals, shooting 9-from-15 overall and 9-from-13 inside the arc, and he pulled down six offensive rebounds on his own. He was named Grand Final MVP.

Jack Stanwix added 16 points and seven rebounds with 4-from-8 from three, and Dibaji Walker had 15 points, three steals and two blocks while going 7-from-9 at the free-throw line. Captain Lucas Barker had nine.

For Eltham, Harrison Hornery scored 17 and took seven rebounds, Sam Short had 14, former NBL guard Mitchell McCarron 12 and seven, and TJ Weeks 11. Captain Samuel Whelan came off the bench for nine points on 3-from-4 from beyond the arc.

The margin was three and Frankston made 19 free throws to Eltham's nine, which is the whole game in one line: a Grand Final decided through traffic.

KNOX GO BACK-TO-BACK, AND BARELY GAVE IT UP

The women's decider four hours earlier was the opposite kind of night.

Knox Raiders beat the Waverley Falcons 80-54 to defend both their NBL1 South championship and their standing as reigning NBL1 National champions, and the scoreline undersells how controlled it was.

Knox committed four turnovers in forty minutes of a Grand Final. Waverley did not record a single steal.

That is not a scrappy upset or a shooting contest, it is a team that finished the regular season 18-4, had not lost a game since May, and carried a 15-game winning streak into the decider simply refusing to give the ball away on the one night it mattered most. The streak is now sixteen with a championship.

Captain Paige Bradley ran it. She finished with 20 points, 10 assists, four rebounds, three steals and three blocks, shooting 9-from-14, and was plus-30 for the night. She was named Grand Final MVP, two weeks after hitting the winner with 4.6 seconds left to get Knox past the Sandringham Sabres 80-78 in the preliminary final.

Alicia Froling gave her a second double-double to work with, 15 points and 15 rebounds including six at the offensive end, on 7-from-13 shooting, and finished plus-35.

Agnes Emma-Nnopu had 11 points, seven rebounds, two steals and two blocks, Rachel Bell scored 11 off the bench with three triples, and Haliegh Reinoehl and Paige Burrows had eight apiece.

Waverley, the 2024 champions, were led by Carley Ernst with 12 points off the bench and Katelyn Shumate with 10 points and seven rebounds. Amy O'Hara took eight rebounds. The Falcons shot 32.31 per cent from the field and 26.32 per cent from three, and were beaten 44-42 on the glass by a Knox side that gave the ball away four times to their eleven.

Knox led 19-12, 45-27 and 64-43 at the breaks.

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