The Northern Mystics have handed the Mainland Tactix their third-straight loss in the ANZ Premiership, but only just, winning 53-52 at Trusts Arena in Auckland on Monday night.
There were signs of improvement for the pre-season favourites, who were in this contest right until the end, something that couldn’t be said about their first two outings.
Ellie Bird tied the game with 15 seconds remaining for the Tactix, but the Mystics went straight to Grace Nweke down the other end, who grabbed the ball under pressure from Karin Burger and Jane Watson, then sank the winner with seconds to spare.
The Mystics went into Monday night’s match on the back of their first win of the season, over the Southern Steel, while the Tactix were looking for their first win, after losing to the Steel and the Stars.
They didn’t make the best of starts in pursuit of that goal, however, turning the ball over twice in the opening three minutes and quickly falling behind 5-1.
Much has been made of the Tactix’ defensive duo, Burger and Watson, but they were given the run around by fellow Silver Fern Bailey Mes and Nweke in the opening quarter.
The Mystics came out looking to put plenty of defensive pressure on their potentially fragile opponents and the Tactix certainly had to work hard for every goal as the lead grew as large as eight.
It was seven at the first break, which was when Tactix coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek went to her bench, bringing on Te Paea Selby-Rickit for her first minutes of the season on her return from an ankle injury.
She immediately gave them a boost at goal attack, bringing her years of Silver Ferns experience to the court in place of the far less experienced Jess Prosser.
Her first couple of shots were slightly nervous misses, but she got the rebound off the second and got on the board with her third, helping her team to begin to close the gap.
With a quarter under their belts, Burger and Watson began to get a grasp on what Mes and Nweke were doing, which helped as well, and with just over two minutes to play before the halftime whistle, they managed to draw level, having gone on a 13-6 run,
The Mystics righted themselves just in time to take a two-goal lead into halftime, where they were ahead 25-23, against an opponent that had collapsed in the final two quarters in both its first two matches.
This time around they drew level right away, though they blew a chance to take the lead when Selby-Rickit missed, and the contest entered a period where the two teams matched each other shot for shot, until the Mystics were able to open up a gap thanks to some neat long passes to Nweke under the net from Peta Toeava.
The Tactix didn’t shrink from the challenge, while the umpires intervened at one stage to give the captains a talking to about some of what they were witnessing, and as they headed to the final quarter, the Mystics’ advantage was a slender two goals.
It grew to five pretty quickly, as Mes persevered well while Watson was throwing all sorts of disruption at her, and the Mystics lifted their defensive effort while bringing former England Roses defender Ama Agbeze off the bench.
The Tactix’ hopes of a comeback took a blow when Erikana Pedersen headed to the bench with what looked like cramp, and they were able to pull within two with six minutes to play, only for Agbeze to come up trumps with an intercept that allowed the Mystics to restore their five-goal buffer.
They had to survive one final scare, as the Tactix pulled within two inside two minutes, then within one with 30 seconds to play, setting up the most dramatic of conclusions.
