Despite having three Cobar Senior Netball premiership titles under their belt, for the first time ever Divas has finished a season as minor premiers, after their three points win over Pumpettes on Saturday.
With semi finals to commence this week, the final round game of senior competition was an all important match for the Divas who had been narrowly beaten by their arch-rivals Pumpettes in Round 7 this season.
Divas started the game well on Saturday and put plenty of pressure on the Pumpettes’ shooters to limit their goal scoring. A greater share of ball possession in the first quarter gave the Divas shooters more scoring opportunities and they narrowly led 7-6 at the first break.
Pumpettes took a bit longer to settle into the match and after a couple of position changes (which worked in their favour) they had turned the match around to lead 17-14 by half time.
With the two sides evenly matched all across the court, they went goal for goal in the third quarter and Pumpettes tenuously retained the upper hand to lead 28-26 at three-quarter time.
Divas’ shooter Lauren Urquhart was in sensational shooting form in the final quarter and land goals from all around the circle.
With plenty of calming team talk from team mate Lisa Travis playing at Goal Attack, Divas clawed their way back in front and finished confidently to claim a three points win, 40-37.
Divas’ Players’ Player, Jennifer Shepherd was a standout playing at Centre.
The former Shooter turned Centre did a great job of firing the ball into her shooters and also pulled off a number of mid-court intercepts to help her side to the win.
Real Steel were big 62-23 winners in their game on Saturday night against Gumnuts.
Real Steel’s shooter Amazon Gladwin was in top shooting form to lead her side to the big win while Gumnuts were well served by their Centre Laura Barnes.
JKM and Hot Shots earned easy points this round after they received forfeits from Mid Strength Merinos and Sharpe Shooters respectively.
The competition will now be split into A and B Grade for the finals with four teams for each grade. Going into the final round, Sharpe shooters, JKM and Real Steel were all on equal points and the results of the final game would determine which side would go into A Grade.
Sharpe Shooters forfeited their game and, as they remained on the same points, they will go into B Grade.
JKM received a win by forfeit and Real steel beat Gumnuts. As both finished with equal points it went to percentages to determine that JKM would play in the A Grade finals and Real Steel will play B Grade.
Divas and Pumpettes play the A Grade major semi this Saturday with the winner to go into the grand final and Hotshots will meet JKM in the A Grade elimination game.
In B Grade Real Steel will play Sharpe shooters for the first grand final spot while Gumnuts will play Mid Strength Merinos in the elimination semi.
