ILLAWARRA found some second-half steel to notch arguably their most impressive win of the season, 93-84, over the 36ers in Adelaide on Friday night.
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Drastically depleted, the Hawks led by 10 at the half and saw off a Jerome Randle-led surge to lead by the same margin at three-quarter-time and by nine at the final buzzer.
With LaMelo Ball, Dave Andersen, Sam Froling and Josh Boone in a crowded injury ward, the road victory was undoubtedly the best performance of rookie coach Matt Flinn's short career.
Sunday Dech continues to make his compelling case for league Most Improved honours at season's end, finishing with 18 points, while AJ Ogilvy finished strongly to log 12 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
"It's huge [for us], obviously our record doesn't look too good right now but we had a really good week at practice and came in and executed a really good game plan tonight," Dech said post-match.
"We compete hard, we just haven't been able to close games out. Tonight I think we did a really good job down the stretch and we put two halves together.
"They made a run late but we were able to weather the storm and get away with it tonight. We keep fighting, Flinny and the coaching have a great message of 'next man up'.
"That's the mentality we had tonight, we had a late withdrawal with Booney, he hurt himself at practice, but tonight everyone chipped in and we got the job done."
Tim Coenraad had eight of his 14 points to close the show in the final term, while Todd Blanchfield had 10 points and six boards on a night where the entire 10-man roster had five or more points.
It included injury replacement import Billy Preston who had seven points on a single unanswered run midway through the third term despite producing one of the quickest foul-outs in NBL history in just 6.02 minutes moments later.
It turned out to be a valuable cameo as Randle mounted a comeback for the hosts, dropping a buzzer a buzzer-beating three on the stroke of halftime and seven points inside the first four minutes of the third term as the Sixers made quick work a 10-point deficit.
He finished with 26 points and six assists but struggled for assistance barring Daniel Johnson's 19 points. It takes the Hawks to 4-11 on the season ahead of Sunday's clash with New Zealand in Wollongong.
The opening term quickly developed into a duel between Johnson and Dech, the 36ers big man dropping nine of his side's first 13 points, while Dech exploded with 11 of the Hawks first 15.
Flinn got rewards for going to his bench early with Angus Glover nailing a three and Hyrum Harris grabbing four on a rare early chance on the floor, though the hosts still led by one at the first break on a long bomb from Jack McVeigh.
McVeigh had his second triple to open proceedings, and a four-point buffer, early in the second. Johnson and Eric Griffin followed up as the lead briefly swelled to seven.
Glover had a couple from the line and a deep three from Hobson got the visitors back within two before Dech levelled things up from the foul line.
The Sixers re-took a three-point lead on back to back buckets from Brendan Teys but it was all square again when Coenraad nailed his first from downtown.
Blanchfield had threes at either end of a 13-0 run, including four more to Harris, as the lead ballooned to 13. A buzzer-beating triple from Randle cut it back to 10 on the stroke of halftime.
Randle made it consecutive threes to start the third term and followed up with another dagger from deep to quickly peg back the lead. Blanchfield fired back from deep but Johnson also got in on the act from deep to cut things back to five.
Randle had a couple more as the margin dropped back to one, Preston responding with back to back slams and a three-point play on a personal 7-0 run.
He fouled out moments later, but the Hawks held their nerve, Emmett Naar nailing a step-back three and Glover going two of two from the line to re-take a 10-point buffer at three-quarter-time.
Glover dropped his second three of the match to start the fourth and the lead swelled to 16 when Coenraad hit back back to back threes.
Randle and Johnson again pulled the Sixers back from the perimeter but it came too late, with Ogilvy and Coenraad closing the show for the visitors.