What a contest.
Hyped pre-game as one of the match-ups of the Picola and District League A-grade netball season so far, Tungamah and Strathmerton’s round 13 match delivered in spades.
The Saturday afternoon top-of-the-table clash at Tungamah’s Jubilee Park went right down to the wire, with Strathmerton picking up a 43-41 victory.
The topsy turvy game saw the scores locked at 10-10 at the end of the first term, before a big second stanza to the home side saw the Bears enter half-time with a 27-17 lead.
In the third quarter it was relatively even, with Tungamah holding a nine-goal lead headed into the final break, before a massive last-term turnaround saw Strathmerton pick up a two-goal win.
Bulldogs coach Olivia Osborne said it took a great team effort to get the win.
“We just kept the possession and used the ball every time we had it,” Osborne said.
“My talk at three-quarter time wasn’t anything to do with our game, it was ‘if we want this we need to go out and play better than they are, we need to keep possession’ and that’s what I feel like we did today.”
Osborne explained that the side had a lot of work to do as finals etched closer, with good teams not falling behind by so much on the scoreboard.
“We’ll take the things we need to build on out of today as well, we won’t just celebrate the win because we’ve got five weeks left to play so we’ve got to keep building if we want to be there in finals,” she said.
Jemmah Ryan stood out for her performance in centre for Strathmerton, while Kate Betson performed well in her first game back for the year and Grace Thomson put in a good shift at wing attack.
For Tungamah there were also plenty of positives to take out of the game and coach Jayanna Sharp said her side wanted to be facing quality opposition at this stage of the season.
“Our girls just lacked putting four quarters together, we had a big lull and we seem to do that at the moment,” Sharp said.
“It’s not a bad thing to lose to such a great side because that’s what we’re going to come up against in finals.”
The result seeing Strathmerton remain equal on points with Waaia at the top of the table, while Tungamah is now four points behind in third.
Elsewhere Tocumwal defeated Mathoura by 19 goals while Katamatite had a week off.
In the B-grade competition Yarroweyah picked up its second win in a row, defeating Katamatite 44-30.