By Marcus Uhe
The curtain has been drawn on the Southside Flyer’s season, losing game two of their WNBL grand final series against Townsville on Wednesday night.
Needing a win to keep their hopes of a championship alive, a 25-13 fourth quarter from the Fire saw them pull-away to a 13-point to clinch the 2022/23 title in front of a raucous crowd Rowville’s State Basketball Centre.
Needing to bounce-back after a horrorshow in game one, the Flyers matched it with their opponents for much of the first quarter, and held a slender lead with just under three minutes remaining in the term.
But the Fire closed the quarter on a 9-2 run to create a seven point lead at the first break.
Defending the paint was proving problematic for the Flyers once again, with the aggressive point-of-attack defence on screens opening driving lanes for the likes of Shyla Heal and Stephanie Reid to take advantage of.
Nyadiew Puoch and Maddison Rocci mounted the comeback in the second quarter before Rebecca Cole lit-up the Fire defence to close the half.
Cole scored 10 points in the quarter including six in the final two minutes as the Flyers rode her hot shooting, and cut the margin to two at the long break.
The second half opened as the first half closed, as Cole set the tone with five quick points.
Back-to-back threes from Sara Blicavs and Kayla Thornton saw Southside take a four-point lead late in the term, in what was becoming a true arm-wrestle for ascendency.
Townsville’s tenacious defence kept them in the contest, creating easy baskets off steals when Southside were caught napping.
A lay-up for Reid at the buzzer meant Townsville took the smallest of leads into the final quarter, setting the stage for an epic conclusion.
Southside needed a good start to the quarter and that’s exactly what they got, mounting a 7-2 run to claim a 64-59 lead within the first three minutes of the quarter.
From that point forward, however, they would only score five more points, as Townsville withstood the head of the moment better than their opponents in blue.
A pair of free throws to Tianna Hawkins gave the Fire a 13-point lead with 13 seconds remaining, and sent their bench into delirium as they celebrated their achievements with the final seconds elapsing.
Cole finished with 26 points for the Flyers, who can look back on their season with pride, having fallen just shy of clinching a championship.
