The Sunshine Coast Lightning arrived in Melbourne with a point to prove, dominating the Collingwood Magpies 65-50.
The home team started in dominant form, scoring the first three goals, and making it look easy.
Molly Jovic and Kelsey Browne found their shooters effortlessly and fed them efficiently. Unfortunately for the Magpies, this did not last as the relentless pressure from the Lightning saw the tables turn.
The Magpies' midcourt pressure meant the Lightning were under the pump and struggling to even feed the ball into the goal circle. However, when they did manage to get the ball inside, or at least to one of their goalers, the combination of Steph Wood and Cara Koenen proved to be a problem.
Wood continued to find her GS and Koenen did not disappoint. Wood even got up to the other end of the floor to get a deflection and force a turnover, resulting in her team putting another goal on the board.
As soon as the super shot siren sounded, she showed her ability to knock down the 2pt shot and allowed her team to get back into the game.
At the Magpies' end, Sophie Garbin struggled to find her form and was 0/3.
The Magpies started their second quarter how they did their first, thus reducing the deficit and clawing their way back into the game. Molly Jovic showed her IQ with an excellent feed into Nelson, to avoid a turnover from a cross-court pass she simply tapped the ball back towards the goal circle and into the open GS.
After being so accurate at the beginning of the game, the Magpies started to become careless with the ball, this was evident when Kadie-Ann Dehaney gets an intercept off another dangerous cross-court pass.
As the super shot siren signals, the Lightning saw their chance to extend their lead, and that they did. Koenen and Wood continued their high-percentage shooting.
Despite holding the lead, the Lightning decided to switch things up in the third quarter. Charlie Bell was subbed on as GS and a new style of play followed.
With Wood off the court, Koenen needed to take on the play-making role, but the pace started to slow down for the lightning around the goal circle.
The Magpies needed to make some big moves in the first 10 mins to stay in the game and although their defensive intensity was prevalent, they just couldn’t seem to look after the ball.
Garbin was struggling this game and Magpies coach Nicole Richardson decided to put Kelly Singleton into GA with Nelson as GS.
It was ultimately the Magpies’ passing accuracy that let them down and the Lightning was unforgiving in offence.
A few turnovers lead to goals for the Magpies, and an important intercept from none other than Ash Brazil in the early stages of the fourth quarter gave her team their fourth goal in a row.
But with a double-digit deficit, the game proved too difficult to get back as the Lightning pushed forward and grabbed the win.
