THE North East Blaze remain undefeated this VNL Championship season after a narrow two goal win over the Bendigo Strikers.
It was a hard fought contest, but the Blaze narrowly held on for the win.
It was a fast paced start to the match, but with a goal defence in Ruby Turner on fire early, it was the Blaze who were the ones to shoot out to a lead early, and some on point shooting from milestone shooter Teal Hocking helped keep the lead in the Blaze’s favour.
However, the Blaze were then able to settle, and with some accurate shooting from Georgia Moody helped the Blaze level up proceedings and subsequently take the lead in the back half of the quarter. Some strong intercept work from the likes of Georgia Bowkett and then Brodie Smith helped the Blaze keep that lead, and it had grown to six goals at the end of the first term.
It was a similar margin at the end of the second quarter too, as both teams went goal for goal and so the Strikers were unable to close the gap.
The third quarter saw the Blaze start well and extend the margin out to 10 goals, before the Strikers fought back and brought it back down to seven as the teams turned for home.
It was not until the final quarter that the Strikers really brought things close again.
The Strikers made a statement to start the final term, scoring four of the first five goals to bring some life back into the match.
That kind of pattern continued several times throughout the term, with the sides wrestling for momentum and going on multiple goal runs.
The Blaze were the ones to go on the last of these, scoring four of the last five of the match, but ultimately ran out of time to get the last few goals needed to take the win.
In other results, the Western Warriors picked up their second ever win with a win over Casey, while the Geelong Cougars picked up a handy win over the Southern Saints. The Melbourne Uni Lightning had a big win over the waves, while the Express had a hard fought and narrow win over the Hawks.
VNL CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 4 FIXTURE
Bendigo Strikers (54) lost to North East Blaze (56)
Casey Demons (58) lost to Western Warriors (68)
Geelong Cougars (55) defeated Southern Saints (43)
Peninsula Waves (47) lost to Melbourne Uni Lightning (73)
Boroondara Express (56) defeated Hawks Netball (54)
Bye – City West Falcons
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