ADE­LAIDE, Aus­tralia– Ja­maican Romel­da Aiken-George starred as Ade­laide Thun­der­birds held off a late surge from Sun­shine Coast Light­ning to se­cure a thrilling 64-62 vic­to­ry in the fi­nal game of the Aus­tralian Su­per Net­ball Cham­pi­onship reg­u­lar sea­son here Sun­day.

The con­test at the Ade­laide En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre was on even keel with the scores tied at 60 but Georgie Hor­jus knocked down a cru­cial su­per-shot and Aiken-George fol­lowed up with two goals, to push the hosts over the line.

Goal-shoot­er Aiken-George fin­ished with 44 goals from 51 at­tempts while goal at­tack Hor­jus sup­port­ed with 10 from 14 at­tempts.

For the losers, Cara Koe­nen led with 24 from 27 at­tempts, re­ceiv­ing help from Stephanie Fretwell who bagged 20 from 24 at­tempts.

Thun­der­birds dom­i­nat­ed ear­ly, lead­ing 18-15 af­ter the first quar­ter be­fore al­so con­trol­ling the sec­ond quar­ter to come away with a 35-29 half-time lead.

The teams could not be sep­a­rat­ed in the third quar­ter af­ter end­ing in a 16-all dead­lock, but Light­ning out-scored Thun­der­birds 17-13 to cre­ate a dra­mat­ic fin­ish to the con­test.

On Sat­ur­day at the RAC Are­na in Perth, an­oth­er Ja­maican Sun­shine girl Jhaniele Fowler was the stand-out as West Coast Fever dom­i­nat­ed Mel­bourne Mav­er­icks 76-57.

The 34-year-old Fowler net­ted 67 from 68 at­tempts in a near per­fect out­ing, Fever con­trol­ling the match from the out­set af­ter rac­ing to a 20-15 lead at the end of the first quar­ter be­fore se­cur­ing a 34-30 half-time ad­van­tage.

Fever then stamped their au­thor­i­ty in the third quar­ter, out-shoot­ing Mav­er­icks 22-13 to set up an easy run in the fi­nal quar­ter.

Fowler’s in­ter­na­tion­al team­mate, Shi­mona Jok, made the run­ning for Mav­er­icks by shoot­ing 30 goals from 33 at­tempts.

Thun­der­birds end­ed the reg­u­lar sea­son on top the ta­ble with 44 points and will take on sec­ond placed Mel­bourne Vix­ens (44 points) next Sat­ur­day for a place in the fi­nal, while third placed Fever (44) clash with Light­ning (24) in the oth­er se­mi-fi­nal.

CMC