DESPITE an almighty effort from the Sunshine Coast Lightning, the Melbourne Vixens have emerged victorious, 64 to 60, to move further ahead of the rest of the pack atop the Super Netball ladder.

Melbourne got off to a dominant start, but the Lightning produced an almighty comeback and almost took the lead on a number of occasions.

Amid the early stages, The Vixens got the jump on their guests, racing to a 3-0 lead before the Lightning got their first on the board.

The lead blew out to as much as six goals before the Lightning called a timeout to address the bleed.

It did not work, as the respective ladder positions really started to show. The Vixens were far too strong and far too classy for the Lightning, and the margin almost ballooned out to double digits.

Thanks to some accurate super shot shooting, the Lightning were able to peg things back a bit, but at quarter time the hosts still held a six-goal lead.

The Vixens did not have it all their own way in the first term. They had more gains and less turnovers then the Lightning did, but they did record more penalties then the Lightning did. Melbourne also had eight per cent more time in possession then the Lightning did.

Melbourne had another good start to the second term, and extended its lead out to eight goals early in the period.

The accuracy was there for the Lightning, but they were just not shooting the volume necessary to keep up with the Vixens.

Sunshine Coast continued to shuffle the magnets around in the hope that something would work and things would start going their way, but nothing seemed to shift as the Vixens’ lead continue to grow.

The Vixens extended their lead out to as much as nine goals during the quarter, but the Lightning came right back at them during the power five period, so the deficit was a mere three goals at half time.

It took a while, but the Vixens wrestled back momentum towards the middle of the third term.

The Lightning again hit back at the Vixens at the back-end of the term, but were not able to take the lead as the home side took a six-goal lead into the final change.

The Lightning came out firing in the final term, and halved the margin in a matter of minutes.  

They got within a goal of the home side and it was set up for a grandstand finish.

The last quarter remained tight for much of the term, with the picture of who would win very much unclear.

It was four goals in favour of the Vixens as the power five began, but the super shot capabilities of the Lightning meant the Vixens were not safe.

Sunshine Coast got within one goal of the hosts, but ultimately the Vixens were too strong and not even a Reilley Batcheldor super shot on the buzzer was enough as the Vixens prevailed by four.

For the Vixens, Liz Watson finished with 40 feeds and 26 goal assists, while Emily Mannix finished with six deflections.

Meanwhile for the Lightning, although she did not get as much game time as usual, Cara Koenen was still very accurate, not missing a shot all game.

Next week sees the Vixens away in Adelaide to face the Thunderbirds, while the Lightning are back at home to face the Pies.

MELBORUNE VIXENS                     19 | 13 | 17 | 0 ()
SUNSHINE COAST LIGHTNING     13 | 16 | 14 | 0 ()

STARTING SEVENS

Melbourne Vixens:

GS: Mwai Kumwenda
GA: Kiera Austin
WA: Liz Watson
C: Kate Moloney
WD: Kate Eddy
GD: Jo Weston
GK: Emily Mannix

Sunshine Coast Lightning:

GS: Cara Koenen
GA: Steph Wood
WA: Laura Scherian
C: Maddie Hinchliffe
WD: Mahalia Cassidy
GD: Kate Walsh
GK: Tara Hinchliffe