Sydney Hunter stars as Maitland Mustangs beat Inner West Bulls 71-56 in NBL1 East

The win at the Maitland Federation Centre on Saturday, May 13 is the Mustang's fifth in six games. They controlled proceedings from the outset racing out to a 13-0 lead and then restricting the visitors to lead 22-8 at the end of the first quarter.

Maitland led 55-35 heading into the final quarter, with the Bulls scoring some late points to bring the margin closer together.

Hunter scored 16 points, shooting at over 50 percent from the field combined with a game-high 13 rebounds.

Captain Rachel Williams also fired from the field, scoring 17 points to go with her six rebounds, six assists and three steals.

It's at the defensive end where coach Mark Wawszkowicz has been most impressed.

"We're not at the level yet where we can blow teams away but we're getting some comfortable wins," he said.

"Our defence is very good and why that is, it's because we have a whole lot of people that are the same size.

"We can interchange, we can make it really difficult for opposition teams, I'm pretty proud of the effort and looking forward to what's next.

"We saw that as a danger game, they had a bit of extra motivation with a couple of ex-Maitland players in their team."

Maitland are back at home on Saturday when they host Albury-Wodonga. With teams fighting for a top eight finish, Wawszkowicz said a win against the ninth-placed Bandits could prove vital.

"That's a huge game for us, because how it is shaping up is there's kind of nine teams in the running for the eight spots," he said.

"Once you get down to number 10 it drops away a fair bit and we don't want to be number nine so the further we can get away from that spot the better.

"Them coming up on a whatever it is, a seven-hour bus trip on Saturday, I think we've really got to hit it hard at the start.

"The good part is we've been starting these games really hard coming out and taking it away from the opposition."

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