The Big V basketball division two women’s ladder leaders’ undefeated streak came to an end on Saturday at the hand of Mornington Breakers, which won 64-60 at Mornington.

Mermaids coach Louise Brown said while she was disappointed to lose, it might have been the wake-up call her team needed after a lacklustre few weeks on the court.

“You learn a lot more from a loss,” she said. “We’ve never really been put in that position, obviously.

“It’s good for the girls to be put in that position and maybe be a little bit hungrier for a win next time we play them – we might play them in finals.

“We haven’t played well in the past three weeks; we’ve been lucky (to win games).

“To be honest, since we had the byes, we’ve probably lost a bit of momentum.”

The Mermaids’ defensive game has trailed off since two byes in three weeks halted their momentum, and they were found out on the rebound.

Brown said the Breakers “out-rebounded” the Mermaids 55-39, and won the offensive rebound count 27-9.

“That’s 27 second opportunities to score,” she said. “That’s where they’ve won the game.

“I said to the girls, offensively you have good and bad days. It’s been our focus all year (to work on) our defensive end of the court: containing and controlling the boards.

“In the last few weeks, we’ve really slipped away from that.

“I’m big on ‘defence wins games’ – that’s the way I coach and the way we were defensively definitely let us down (on Saturday).”

Brown refused to use the Mermaids’ height deficiencies as an excuse, but conceded the absence of Holly Greene, Maddy White and Lily Killey hurt the Warrnambool team, which also only had Amy Wormald for 25 minutes after she came into foul trouble.

Brown said Wormald played a great offensive game, but struggled defensively which landed her in a tight spot and forced the star to sit out.

Marly Blackney-Noter was strong coming off the bench, while Ellen Zeunert made the most of her 16 minutes on the court and drained a handy 10 points.

Meanwhile, the Warrnambool Seahawks turned things around drastically in the last quarter to post a 94-78 win over Melton Thoroughbreds at the Arc.

Coach Matt Alexander was impressed with the way his charges corrected defensive breakdowns to turn a two-point three-quarter-time deficit into a 16-point win on the back of the 30-12 term.

“Having Alex (Gynes) back was good,” he said. “It was pretty much a captain’s performance; a bit of sacrifice. He probably shouldn’t have played, be he played and did really well for us.”

Alexander was unsure if Gynes would take to the court in the next week or two as he continues to manage a back injury that has sidelined him for much of the season.

Xavier Johnson-Blount drained 32 points and had 13 rebounds, while fellow experienced heads Gynes and Gainey scored 22 and 17 points apiece.

The Seahawks’ youth league men’s team went down to Melton Thoroughbreds 71-86 at the Arc. James Mitchell top-scored with 20 points and had 13 rebounds, while David Denboer sunk 14 points.

Former Seahawk Nathan Sobey made his NBA Summer League debut for Utah Jazz, getting nine minutes’ court time in the 63-72 loss to Portland Trail Blazers.