The NSW Swifts have handed the Melbourne Vixens their first home loss of the Super Netball season, with a 70-62 victory sending a warning to their rivals ahead of the looming finals.
Key points:
- The Swifts only trail the ladder-leading Thunderbirds via inferior percentage
- Helen Housby finished with 19 goals from 21 attempts for the Swifts
- The Firebirds defeated the Giants 68-50
In Sunday’s second game, the Queensland Firebirds banked their third win of the season to climb off the bottom of the ladder with a rousing 68-50 victory over the Giants.
With three rounds to play before the four-team play-offs, the Swifts used super-shot accuracy to pile on the points in an impressive display in Sunday’s game at John Cain Arena.
The Sydney-based team kept the Melbourne crowd mostly quiet, leading at every break of the First Nations Round game.
They were in front 39-32 at halftime and led by 16 points heading into the fourth quarter and while the Vixens won that final term, it proved too large a lead to peg back.
Swifts goal attack Helen Housby finished with 19 goals from 21 attempts, while Romelda Aiken-George contributed 29 from 34 and Sophie Fawns 12 from 16 as they shared the shooting duties.
Fawns’s haul included seven two-point super shots, while Housby bagged three.
Shooting at only 77 per cent, the Vixens mixed up their line-up to try to stem the supply but the Swifts seemed to have an answer for everything.
On the back of the win the second-placed Swifts moved to 34 points, trailing the ladder-leading Adelaide Thunderbirds only by inferior percentage, and are now six points clear of West Coast Fever and the Vixens on 28.
Named player of the match, England international Housby shot at 100 per cent from the one-point range while she had 18 goal assists.
Firebirds triumph over Giants
The Firebirds celebrated their first away win of a disappointing season, outplaying the Giants at Sydney’s Ken Rosewall Arena in the final game of the round.
The loss was a terminal blow for the Giants’ finals hopes, with the western Sydney team stalled on 16 points, 12 behind the Vixens with three rounds to play.
The teams were locked at 28-28 at halftime but the visitors set up the win on the back of a big third quarter.
Firebirds goal shooter Donnell Wallam, who left the court in the second quarter with a finger injury, helped build a six-point lead that the visitors extended into the final quarter with a 10-goal run.
Wallam finished with 44 goals from 48 attempts and her teammates Emily Moore tipped in 11 from 12.
Former England international Jo Harten was top-scorer for the Giants before she was replaced heading into the fourth quarter, while centre Jamie-Lee Price was also a stand-out.
Firebirds goal-keeper Remi Kamo starred at the other end, collecting nine gains and five intercepts as she kept the pressure on the Giants shooting circle.
The Firebirds’ win leaves Collingwood, who lost to Sunshine Coast Lightning on Saturday, anchored to the bottom of the ladder to cap a miserable week after the club announced they were closing their netball program at the end of the season.
AAP
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