Panthers lapse late in loss to Lynx

NETBALL: A flat last-quarter performance proved costly for Darling Downs Panthers in their round-10 State Netball League Division Two City loss on Tuesday night.

The Panthers went down 5941 to Sunshine Coast Lynx in front of their home crowd at USQ Recreation Centre.

The Panthers were in the hunt for an upset victory when they trailed the visitors by only one point at half-time.

But as in its previous week loss to Jaguars the Panthers leaked too many final-quarter points to capitalise on their good early game performance.

Coach Bec Stower said a tactical replacement move by her failed to ignite the team in the final quarter as planned.

“We were down one point at half-time and seven at threequarter time,” Stower said.

“Last week against Jaguars we left the same seven on court which hurt us.

“The girls just seemed to run out of legs.

“This week I tried team changes going into the backend of the game.

“But unfortunately it finished up back-firing on us.

“You do what you think is best at the time — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“But the last time we played Lynx we lost by 30 so we are achieving our second-round goals of improving on our firstround performance against each team.

“We still have areas to work on. We lost 22 of our own centre passes last night which will always be costly.”

Panthers are away next Tuesday to Cougars.