By Madeline Irwin
The Adelaide Thunderbirds rose to another level in a 13-goal triumph over the West Coast Fever at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday night.
Fresh off a tight game last week, Fever started strongly against the home side with an unchanged line up from last week.
The game opened with a tight tussle between the sides for the majority of the first half, the Fever outscoring the home side by one goal to quarter time, before the Thunderbirds roared to life to go five goals up at the main break.
Former Thunderbird Sasha Glasgow had a hot-hand in the first quarter, contributing seven points from eight shots, which featured the first two-pointer of the game. She was denied opportunity in the second quarter, which coincided with the rise of the home side.
In her first game against her former side, Romelda Aiken-George was wasteful in the circle only managing eight goals in the opening quarter, despite having 15 attempts. She was accurate in the second quarter, contributing 11 goals from 12 attempts.
The defensive end of the Fever had their work cut out for them from the beginning with the form of Elmeré van der Berg and Georgie Horjus but through Kadie-Ann Dehaney, they were able to keep the Thunderbirds at bay before they broken even at half-time.
Co-captain Shamera Sterling Humphrey was an architect of Adelaide’s resurgence, working her way into the match to take her first intercept of the game to go with eight deflections.
Horjus was also phenomenal in the middle portion of the game. She had 48 feeds and 37 goal assists.
In a poor third quarter for the Fever, it was the Thunderbirds that strode ahead, outscoring the Fever. As a consequence, Fever coach Dan Ryan rang in the changes, utilising his whole squad throughout second and third quarters, namely bringing captain Alice Teague-Neeld into the goal circle to attempt to pile on the pressure.
The lead blew out further in the final stanza, with Ryan issuing a time-out when the Thunderbirds got out to a 14-point lead.
Doing her part during the final five minutes, Glasgow shot two supershots for the Fever to get them thirteen goals short at the final siren.
Thunderbirds coach Tania Obst spoke post-game about the impact of shooter Lauren Frew. Her role has shifted to a lesser load shooting-wise, with more impact given to support Van der Berg as the dominant force in attack.
"I'd like 'Loz' (Frew) to get to the post a little bit more, I suppose Elmeré is such a target under the post and we are really able to hit her from and on circle edge," she said.
"I think we need to keep working out different ways of getting the ball to her which may look to how 'Loz' injects herself into the circle but currently, 'Loz' is getting to Elmeré and Loz isn't actually needing to get to the post, we know she can, it's just finding opportunities."
