The Gauteng Jaguars sustained their first defeat since 2019 after being beaten 45-43 by the Southern Stings. Coming into this match, both teams had met sixteen times with the Jaguars winning twelve of those games and the Stings claiming three wins. The Stings’ defensive trio of Nicola Smith, Mandolene Hermanus and Stephanie Brandt were effective in creating turnover balls and their efforts were smoothly rewarded by the shooters- Nichole Taljaard and Danelle Lochner who boasted a combined eighty seven percent shooting average. Stings coach- Annelie Lucas relied on the same starting seven to carry out the task for the first three quarters and only made one change in the final quarter.
‘’We are one of the teams that are able to give the Jaguars a run and the way my ladies are playing, they deserve to be in the final, but they need to show us that they want to be there by playing on court’’, Annelie said. ‘’We will focus on the Crinums; they will be playing later this afternoon, so I’ll have a close look at them because I never underestimate them. They are such a versatile team and there is always something up their sleeves’’, she concluded.
In division two, the Mpumalanga Sunbirds staged a comeback and defeated the Limpopo Baobabs 49-46. The Baobabs were leading in the first three quarters, but the tables changed in the last quarter when the Baobabs Goalkeeper and captain- Nthabiseng Mothutsi and Center- Shongile Hlungwana went off. The Sunbirds took advantage of the missing links from the Baobabs side and increased their conversion rate to win the game by a narrow three goals.
Sunbirds’ captain- Maryke Coetzee says the team had to remind themselves that they are here to compete, ‘’The first two quarters were really not nice and the spirit in the team wasn’t good at all. At half-time were we like, this is it and all of sudden there was just a switch in each and every player that took to court. They gave their everything even though we were still trailing in the third quarter, but we managed to close the gap and in the fourth quarter, we just pulled through’’.
The third game saw the Northern Cape Diamonds book their spot in the playoffs after beating the Kingdom Queens 52-47. The Queens will now return home after finishing last in division two following two victories in twelve games. The Diamonds are yet to find out who they will face in the 5th/6th playoff match tomorrow.
