THE Busselton Bullets have managed to raise eyebrows this week and not because of the new uniforms.
They went into their fixture against heavy weight Tornadoes Black well under manned with Matt Mildwaters unavailable and both Ethan Bowman and Craig Warburton on the injury list, but came up trumps in an enthralling battle 67 - 64.
The starting five of Beau Chinnery, Damien Lee, Adam Dehring, Dylan Ness and Liam Kelly came up trumps shutting down their much more fancied opponents.
Dehring played the entire game without sub and was pivotal in shutting down the leagues form player Jason Smith.
Dehring reduced Smith to his lowest score of the season and the frustration clearly showed as Smith missed a number of easy shots.
The other defensive match ups resulted in last year’s league most valuable player Nat Van Dijk maintained to a scrappy 13 points.
At the offensive end the staring five again did the job all reaching double figures.
In particular Damien Lee continued his hot form and is proving a difficult to contain.
Lee was the highest on the scoring sheet with 19 points but was also pivotal to the match with his goal assists.
Lee in particular was instrumental in establishing the 37 – 25 half-time lead.
The second have resulted in some strong aggressive play from Ness and Kelly regularly to keep Black guessing as to who to actually close down.
Black did manage to find a more concentrated approach to their offence in the second half and with about 10 minutes to go key players Jason and Ryan Smith tried to bring them home.
A few nervous moments and crazy attempts to dribble through a full court press saw the 12 point lead whittle down to only four in the dying stages.
An unnecessary intentional foul following a turnover resulted in black having a window of opportunity to rip the win from the Bullets hands.
Ryan Smith for Black luckily missed the second three throw and then Van Dijk rattle out an ugly three point attempt to ensure the Bullets secured their first major upset.
The Bullets will have no time to celebrate their success as they back up again this Friday against the undefeated Aces Navy.
Aces Navy feature three SBL guards that will be the real test for Bullets to contain.
Bullets will be hoping that Bowman and Mildwaters are back to ensure they that have some greater depth coming off the bench.
The game should be well worth watching with tip-off at 9:00pm at the South west Sports Centre.
