Wagga Heat go down to Shoalhaven Tigers in first home game of the Waratah League season

The Heat suffered their third straight loss to open the new season, going down 69-48 to the undefeated Shoalhaven Tigers.

Heat coach Zac Maloney believes his young team were overawed by the occasion of the first home game of the year.

"We took a little step back from what we have been building," Maloney said.

"I think a lot of it was confidence. We had a pretty big crowd, around 200 spectators, and a lot of the younger boys haven't played in front of that before so I think nerves played a bit part in it and we just struggled to play through some offensive sets.

"Our defence was still relatively good, which is a plus, just offensively we struggled to get through some sets and were really rushed, which allowed breakdowns in our offensive sets."

Jacob Edwards and Josh Cochrane were two of the Heat's better players in defeat.

Edwards 'created some good looks' and also performed admirably in his role of guarding Shoalhaven's Bruce Ozolins. Ozolins had averaged more than 30 points in the opening two rounds and was restricted to four on Saturday night.

Cochrane started the game well offensively and finished with eight points.

The Heat are at home again next week to Springwood.

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