Posted on 24 July, 2017

The Lady Cobras closed in on securing the SEABL regular season championship with a thrilling 71-65 victory over the Melbourne Tigers on Retro Night.

After starting off the game on fire, the Lady Cobras offence quickly dried up and they once again found themselves in a dogfight, trailing 31-36 at halftime. They would reclaim the lead late in the third period behind some suffocating defence, but couldn’t put away a pesky Tigers team, falling behind by as many as five points early in the final quarter.

Down 52-57 with just over seven minutes remaining, the Lady Cobras finished the game as they started, fuelled by the playmaking of Chantella Perera and scoring of Rosie Moult and Angela Beadle. Moult started the Kilsyth comeback with back-to-back three pointers, and after a pair of empty possessions, Beadle gave the Lady Cobras the lead for good as she scored inside of a pretty feed from Perera.

Leading 62-61 with under three minutes remaining, Sarah Parsons nailed a dagger from beyond the arc, and on the ensuing possession, Perera again set-up Beadle for an easy finish inside to put the game out of reach. Moult and Jordyn O’Shea put the finishing touches on the win with back-to-back jumpers, capping a 19-6 run during crunch time.

Beadle battled early foul trouble to finish with 19 points and 10 rebounds, Perera continued her scintillating play of late with 17 points, six rebounds and four assists and Moult buried four three-pointers en-route to 14 points and three assists. Parsons and O’Shea rounded out an impressive performance by the starters, combining for 19 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists and four steals in the win.

Lady Cobras Head Coach Sam Woosnam was pleased with her team’s play down the stretch against a tough Tigers team, one that keeps them atop the league standings with two games remaining.

“After starting the game off the best we have all season, we really got ourselves into some problems against Melbourne,” Woosnam said.

“With main players in foul trouble it was always going to be a tough slog, but we got it together when it counted and recorded another important win.” 

The Lady Cobras record now moves to 16-4, keeping them a half game ahead of Geelong in the East Conference standings. They’ll look to make it three straight wins this Saturday as they head north to the border to take on the Albury-Wodonga Bandits.