ADELAIDE Thunderbirds are through to another decider after a dominant 68-43 win over the Melbourne Vixens in yesterday’s major semi-final. The margin was only six goals in the Thunderbirds’ favour at the first change, but a 19 goals to nine second quarter really set the tone for the rest of the match, and the Vixens were never in it after that.

The Thunderbirds also earned the big win with minimal Super Shots, only scoring two between their four shooters. In comparison, Kiera Austin shot four Super Shot goals for the Vixens by herself.

The Thunderbirds did truly dominate in other areas though.

As compared to the Vixens, the Thunderbirds had:

• Double the number of intercepts (10 to 5)
• Triple the number of gains (24 to eight)
• A fair superior gain to gain rate percentage (71 to 38) and
• A much better turnover to goal rate percentage (73 to 60).

The perfect encapsulation of that dominance was Shamera Sterling-Humphrey, who had almost double the number of gains (14) and the same number of intercepts (five) as the entire Vixens teams. She also had six deflections and eight rebounds.

Georgie Horjus again starred through midcourt, recording 31 feeds and 19 gains in another impressive performance. Romelda Aiken-George was also a workhorse under the attack ring, and although slightly down on accuracy more than made up for it in volume of goals.

Meanwhile for the Vixens it was Hannah Mundy who led the way through midcourt, continuing an impressive first proper season in the league.

This win sees the Thunderbirds through to the decider yet again, while the Vixens have to sit tight and wait to see who wins today’s minor semi-final to see who they will play next week in the preliminary final.

ADELAIDE THUNDERBIRDS      19 | 19 | 16 | 14 (68)
MELBOURNE VIXENS                  13 | 9 | 10 | 11 | (43)