College A certainly used the third quarter in their favour, pouring on 23 points to sneak in front of St Hilda’s Collegiate A.
It led College to a 63-55 victory over St Hilda’s at the Edgar Centre on Saturday.
St Hilda’s can be proud of their first game in premier A — after being promoted from premier B a fortnight ago — and they are sure to push teams all the way in the top grade.
It was a cliched game of two halves with the school side coming out firing and the club side coming home strongly.
St Hilda’s were slick through court and led 22-15 at the first break.
Charlee Farquhar — who was recently named in the New Zealand secondary schools team alongside team-mate Ruby Hore — was a strong target under the post.
She held nicely and created good space at the back, and her feeders found good depth to supply nice ball.
College were active on defence, trying to confuse the space and shut down St Hilda’s options on attack.
St Hilda’s held on to lead 36-29 at halftime.
Then the tides changed.
Things started to click for College, who found better flow on attack and picked up more ball defensively.
Millie Mackenzie shifted from centre to goal defence and had a big impact.
She snapped up tips and was key in bringing the ball down the court until she succumbed to what appeared to be a serious knee injury.
Experienced wing attack Zoey Flockton was injected late in the first half and helped settle College’s attack end.
The Pelasio sisters, Kiana and Talei, worked off each other in the shooting circle, and Kiana often popped the ball over to her younger sister to finish off and catch the defence out.
Kiana — a former Southern Steel and Central Pulse shooter — guided the attack end, pulling her defender off the line and setting College’s structures outside of the circle to remove the pressure from her midcourters.
University Albion A continued their unbeaten run with a 67-33 win over South Pacific Titans Taiko.
Physed A also had a strong 62-48 win against Titans Titi.
After a tight opening quarter, Columba College A pulled away from the Southern Magpies to win 58-40.
