A STRONG starting Hawks Netball came away 25-point victors over the Peninsula Waves, who are still chasing their first win of the Victorian Netball League (VNL) season.

First Nations round in the VNL saw everyone looking stunning with their dresses, warm up shirts and bibs. The posts and centre circle was decorated with Indigenous designs as well as the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Australian flags being displayed courtside.

Melbourne University Lightning and the Casey Demons donned their first nations dress with the Wilson Storage Southern Saints and Ariel debuting theirs.

Sixth placed Hawks are trying to keep their season alive, needing the win to remain in finals contention. On the other hand, the Waves are trying to get off the bottom of the championship ladder and get their first win of the season.

The last time these two sides met, the Hawks took the four points and had a convincing win 63-43 only three rounds ago, and the Hawks kept up this form taking the win an even greater margin, 69-44.

A very even first term saw both sides stay composed, but it wasn’t until the last few minutes in the first quarter where the Hawks pulled away by five after the introduction of Keeley Burgmann (11 goals) into the shooting circle for the Hawks.

Burgmann was completing the same moves a lot of the time in the circle, staying on her front hold and shuffling back and doing double players with her middle all on her own. Every time she did this, it worked. Her vision into a dominant and consistent Kaylia Stanton (54) was silky and clean.

Stanton was also extremely strong in the air, making it seem as though she could pull in any ball being thrown into her. Her aerial and ground work was phenomenal, being able to use her body positioning, dodges, and drives while landing right on the baseline and slot the goals with 91 per cent accuracy while getting a massive shooting load.

The Waves tried to keep in touch in the second term with the lead extending to 10 goals, but it was allowing them thee remainder of the 30 minutes to peg back the lead, which the Hawks didn’t allow going on to take the third quarter 47-33.

There were moments of hope for the Waves though with Jessica Tetley being their standout in the attack end. She was getting pretty much every second pass while in wing attack and her boost of energy when she was shifted into her more familiar position of goal attack brought the energy up in the whole side.

The battle between Tetley and Kelsey Buxton was one to watch with both having great games. It was easy to tell when Buxton was on and off the court with her hands over pressure allowing her to win plenty of ball while being in the right place at the right time to pick up the loose balls.

She also did so much work in attack, constantly receiving the ball in the middle third on the defensive transitions and repositioning herself to get into the best place for the other Hawks players.

The Waves were trying to keep a float from the second quarter onwards, but it was the full court effort from all Hawks players that showed up to the challenge which dragged the Waves down in confidence.

Defensive efforts from the Hawks stopped the Waves from converting their goals while preventing them from scoring on their own centre passes. The Hawks saw their lead extend to as much as 26 in the fourth term which was the best for them, scoring 22 goals to the Waves 10 for the quarter.

The Waves go on to next week hoping to gain some clarity wanting to know how to win and how to beat their opponent with most VNL having very convincing seasons.

VICTORIAN NETBALL LEAGUE ROUND 11 RESULTS – CHAMPIONSHIP

Casey Demons (64) defeated Melbourne University Lightning (45)
Geelong Cougars (57) defeated Wilson Storage Southern Saints (45)
North East Blaze (64) defeated Ariels (44)
Hawks Netball (69) defeated Peninsula Waves (44)
Boroondara Express (61) defeated by City West Falcons (69)