The Southside Flyers have superior to their second WNBL grand remaining in three seasons after notching an exhilarating 73-72 win towards the Melbourne Boomers in Game Three of their semi-final collection.
Sara Blicavs (14 factors) was sturdy early in Wednesday’s epic derby on the State Basketball Centre, earlier than Maddi Rocci (14) got here up big within the clutch to safe the 2-1 collection triumph.
Import Tiffany Mitchell (23 factors) shrugged off a poor first half to virtually drag the Boomers over the road, whereas league MVP Cayla George (22 factors, 13 rebounds) was inspirational in defeat.
Down by a degree contained in the final 30 seconds, George’s errant inbound move for Mitchell sailed out of bounds earlier than Melbourne had one final shot to maintain alive their bid for back-to-back titles, just for Leilani Mitchell to overlook the go-ahead trey contained in the final two determined seconds.
Star import Kayla Thornton, who missed Game Two with an ankle damage, made her presence felt early by scoring the Flyers’ first 5 factors, earlier than Blicavs took management at each ends.
The Tokyo Olympian masterminded an 11-2 run which lifted Southside to a 16-15 benefit on the finish of a scrappy, nerve-filled, first-quarter arm wrestle between the arch-rivals.
Carly Ernst got here off the bench to attain eight factors within the second time period to stretch the Flyers’ cushion to 38-32 on the essential break.
Captain George scored 10 of the Boomers’ 17 second-quarter factors whereas teammate Mitchell, the league’s high scorer, was held to only two first-half factors on 1-of-11 taking pictures because of Bec Cole’s unrelenting defence.
Mitchell exploded again to kind after the interval, pouring in 9 factors in simply over three minutes because the Boomers edged again in entrance.
The lead modified palms six occasions throughout a pulsating third time period which Southside, paced by Blicavs and 18-year-old reserve Nyadiew Puoch, completed with a 10-0 burst to steer 56-51 at three-quarter-time.
Melbourne appeared like seizing management within the fourth via the brilliance of Mitchell and management of George, who swatted Blicav’s three-point try and nailed a monster three of her personal.
But that they had no solutions for pint-sized Rocci, who linked on a collection of drives, drew an important offensive foul and buried a large triple contained in the final minute to provide Southside the sting.
The Flyers will tackle Townsville Fire within the best-of-three grand remaining collection beginning on Saturday.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
