Northern Mystics 47
Southern Steel 41
KEY POINTS:
New Zealand will be represented by just one team in the playoffs after the Northern Mystics effectively ended the Southern Steel's faint semifinal hopes with a convincing win at the North Shore Events Centre last night.
The Steel needed to win their final three games to have a chance at making the inaugural ANZ Championship playoffs, but last night's 47-41 loss means the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic are the only Kiwi side who will have a shot at the transtasman title.
After suffering heart-breaking one-goal losses in their last two hit-outs, the Mystics defender Sheryl Scanlan said her side were desperate to produce a strong finish to their season, and that desire proved too great for the visitors to overcome, despite their play-off aspirations. She believes it was the Mystics' application on defence that proved the difference.
"Defensively it was a whole team effort. We started right from the shooters down, they held up the ball really well to make sure there were no easy passages for [the Steel]," she said.
The Steel had trouble converting early possession, with shooters Daneka Wipiiti and Julianna Naoupu both missing their first shots at goal. And with the visitors also guilty of making a few sloppy errors in the opening minutes, the Mystics streaked out to a 5-1 lead.
But the Steel soon settled in to their rhythm and played their trademark safe, steady style of netball to draw level at 6-all and then open up a 9-6 lead with two minutes remaining in the period as the Mystics shooters began to go off the boil. The long reach of Steel defender Megan Hutton caused Silver Ferns shooter Paula Griffin problems finding her target.
Mystics goal-attack Jade Topia produced a strong run towards the end of the period, helping her side out to a narrow 11-10 lead at the first break.
The Mystics got the jump on the visitors early on in the second spell, extending their lead out to 16-12, but changes to the Steel defence end, brought about by a foot injury to Katrina Grant, worked to disrupt the Mystics' flow, allowing the Steel to close the gap to one, but the home side pulled away towards the end of the spell to take a handy 24-19 lead at halftime.
Given the Mystics had let commanding leads slip from their grasp in their last two matches, the home side could scarcely afford to feel comfortable heading in to the second half.
With the memories of the past two weeks perhaps fresh on their mind, the Mystics put the foot down in the third quarter and stretched out their lead to 37-29 by the end of the period.
The Steel introduced a raft of changes to their line-up for the final quarter to try to undo the damage, but the Mystics' impenetrable defensive unit ensured the Steel did not threaten their lead.
