Defence key as Falcons down Magic
DEFENCE was how it started and defence was how it ended. The Andy Bay Falcons held the South Pac Magic scoreless for six minutes in the second quarter to establish a 15point lead.
When the comeback came, they repeated the effort through the final six minutes to close out the win.
It ended the Magic’s unbeaten start to the Dunedin women’s club season, as the Falcons bounced back from last week’s heavy loss, claiming a 7560 win. Alexa Duff and Elise Carline led the Falcons’ offence with 21 and 20 points respectively.
They were ably supported by a group that stepped up in different stretches.
Madi Loudon (11 points), Zoe Melville (10 points) and Laura Ring (eight points) all showed their value.
But it was the ability to keep the Magic scoreless for those stretches that won this one. Shanti Kara (19 points) and Millie Simpson (17 points) helped the Magic to a 1918 lead late in the first quarter. Backtoback threepointers from Ring sparked a Falcons run to give them a 2621 lead at the break.
At that point the Falcons defence locked in.
The Magic offence had no answer, and the Falcons took full advantage, streaking out to a 3823 lead.
Melville was particularly prominent through that stretch, as the Falcons showed their depth — much of the period coming with Duff on the bench. That is not to say Duff was not influential, on both ends of the court.
She hit two threepointers and showed off a wellrounded passing game, to help extend the Falcons’ 4430 halftime lead to 6247 at the end of the third quarter.
At that point the Magic rallied.
Kara and Tia Pavihi took over, as they went on a 132 run of their own to open the fourth quarter.
That took them as close as six, with the score at 6660 with six minutes remaining.
It was all the Magic could manage, though.
The Falcons defence stepped up once more, and the Magic did not score again.
Carline completed a threepoint play, before finishing off an offensive rebound to make it 7160.
Duff had the final say, though.
She hit a pretty midrange jumper in the key to cap her scoring night, before a final pass along the baseline to find Melville for the last basket. In the other game, Tyler Mitchell and Sophie Adams had 10 points each, as Varsity beat Ajax 4433 in a lowscoring affair.
In men’s club basketball games on Saturday, the Mid City Magic asserted its dominance with a 10160 thrashing of the City Rise Bombers, in a topofthetable clash.
The Mid City Lions beat Varsity 8162, while the St
Kilda Saints beat the Andy Bay Falcons 10977 in the battle of the two winless teams.
James acknowledged that playing in the league for as long as he had had taken a toll but was worth it.
‘‘It’s very taxing,’’ the fourtimes champion said.
‘‘Mentally, physically, spiritually, everything . . . but it’s very rewarding because if you love the game, the process and you love being great, then you don’t mind taking the tax on your body, your mind and your psyche.’’ — Reuters