Big Adventures, Little World

The Division 4 State League Grand Final was played last night at Pasadena Stadium between the North Adelaide Rockets and the Western Magic. With the Rockets dominating the Northern Conference all year, and the Magic beating out big favourite, Forestville 2, in the semi final, It was sure to be a big match up. In the other semi final, North held off the last Southern Conference team in Flinders Uni, who had been a force all year.

North would go into the game as favourites, having beaten the Magic in their two encounters during the year and also on a 11 game winning streak. However, the Magic were with their full squad and on a streak of their own, and having beaten some tough oponents, it wasn’t going to be easy.

The crowd showed the great anticipation everyone had for this game with over 150 turning out to cheer their teams on. While the Magic brought loud voice and chants, the North supporters easily matched them with their voices, pom poms and giant banner.

North got out to a great start, finding open shots and playing great defence which so them go into the first break with the lead. The Magic weren’t giving up though, and fought back tirelessly, only to have North up their defensive pressure and go on a 10-0 run which saw the lead out to 16. Magic fought back to decrease the lead slightly but half time, but a lot of people were sensing the damage had already been done.

The Magic had other ideas, coming out of the half time break with energy to try and diminish the lead. They got the lead back down to 4 points before North called a timeout and made some much needed substitutions. North finished off the quarter strongly going into the last quarter with a double digit lead. This was no reason for them to slacken off though, with the memories of the previous year’s Grand Final still in their minds where they nearly blew a double digit lead going into the last quarter.

North knew what they had to do and came out to give their all in the last quarter, running it out, playing exceptional defence, and playing a great team game to take the lead to close to 30 points with five and a half minutes to play. They then cleared their bench with the 5 players who built the unassailable lead coming off, for the 5 from the bench to come in and finish off the game. The Magic never gave up and fought back strong, but North were not going to relenquish their lead, with the final scoreline reading 84-70.