Mid City Magic are unbeaten this season and they would like to keep it that way. They will play the City Rise Bombers in the Dunedin men’s A grade club basketball final on Saturday. They dispatched University A 87-74 in the semifinal last weekend. Captain Toby Lewis top-scored with 22 points, and former Nuggets forward Patrick Freemen collected 21. Mac Stodart — brother of Otago rugby player Will Stodart — is another key player in their line-up. He is a beast under the rim and can shoot from the outside as well. The Magic beat the Bombers 101-89 in May and 106-80 in June, so they will go into the contest as heavy favourites. But coach Lane Sievwright warned against reading too much into the previous encounters. “We won the title last year and we just want to continue that,” Sievwright said. “But the Bombers are a good team. They’ve got some really nice players in their team and it is going to come down to who wants it more on the day.’’ You could not “look at previous games, because not everyone’s had their full line-up for every game”, Sievwright said. “The Nuggets players come and go. We’re probably lucky, in a lot of ways, that none of them are playing in the Nuggets squad this year. “So we haven’t had players coming in and coming out, as opposed to some of the other teams that have had players who are in the Rapid League team or wider squad.” The continuity has served the Magic well. The club is on a high. For the first time in the Magic’s 35-year history, the club has a team in all four of the men’s club finals. The Magic women are into next week’s final as well. “The club’s come along together. A lot of people from the club have done a lot of work.” The Bombers can lean on a solid core of talented players. They edged the St Kilda Saints 82-79 in the other semifinal. Nuggets back-up guard Patrick Tipene poured in 25 points and Hamish Robertson collected 16 points. Ben Hoskin is another capable scorer. He added 12 points. Harry Townsend missed the semifinal, but he is expected to be back for the final and is a talented youngster.
