Gallery | Captain Matty’s magic sees Gators knock off fellow contender

Despite stuffing the stat sheet with baskets, it was his magical passing that electrified the crowd.

The skipper came out of the gate hot, starting with a pull-up triple before driving past his defender and throwing in a soft floater, showcasing his finesse in the first quarter.

Despite his great start, the Gators trailed by one heading into the second quarter.

Bartlett continued his rampage, hitting three three-pointers as the Gators regained control of the game, outscoring the visiting side by 13 in the second period to carve out a 37-25 lead at half-time.

He then took the roof off the Shepparton Sports Stadium, throwing a lob pass from just a few steps over half-court for Derek Murphy to showcase his athleticism, throwing down the dunk and setting the crowd alight in the process.

“I know for a fact Derek absolutely loves it (lob passes), I’ve missed Derek on a couple, and he’s telling me to throw it up so I threw one up for him tonight,” Bartlett said.

He added a few more great lob passes, setting up Josh Kooiman in transition before throwing it up high for Murphy to display his vertical leap and finish over his defender.

Bartlett saved the best for last though.

With the shot clock winding down, he received the ball on the wing, with his defender pressing up on him, clearly worried about his shooting ability and trying to force him into a drive or tough shot.

The Pakenham bench began to count down the final five seconds of the possession in a bid to throw the skipper off his game.

Bartlett held the ball, lulling the defence to sleep for a moment, before unleashing a ridiculous one-handed skip pass to a wide-open Sam Beks in the corner, landing the ball perfectly in his shooting pocket.

As Beks shot the three Bartlett ran down the other end of the court with three fingers in the air, not even having to look to see if the ball went in.

Beks drains it.

“When I’m hitting the three it just means they need to stick to me a bit more, they were icing screens so really packing the paint and we told our shooters to stick to the three, so I saw Beks in the corner and he knocked it down,” Bartlett said.

That was pretty much all she wrote. Despite a small fightback from Pakenham in the fourth quarter, the game was ultimately out of reach for the visiting side.

The contest was the second part of a back-to-back weekend for the Gators after they comfortably handled second-last-placed Collingwood, 101-67, on the road on Saturday night.

Bartlett said Pakenham had been a difficult opponent this season, playing them twice in back-to-back games, and having lost to them earlier in the season on the Sunday after playing the previous night.

Gators coach Josh Waight echoed Bartlett’s comments about the difficulties of “double-headers” and said the Collingwood game started late, so he doubted the boys had had much sleep on Saturday night.

“Against a quality team like Pakenham, it was a really good win,” Waight said.

“We want to prepare ourselves for the business end of the year, it’s important we keep elite habits against every team no matter where they are on the ladder.”

The win propels the Gators to the top of the ladder, but they won’t have too much time to celebrate, welcoming second-placed Warrnambool to the Swamp for another top-of-the-table clash on Saturday night.

Doors open at 6pm for a 7pm tip-off on Saturday, June 3, at the Shepparton Sports Stadium.

“Keep coming to these games, we’re on a roll at the moment and there’s bigger and better things to come for Shepparton basketball,” Bartlett said.