Fever Ousted by Swift Revival

The NSW Swifts produced a miracle to defeat the West Coast Fever 55-51 in arguably one of the games of the season to conclude the fourth round of the 2011 ANZ Championship from the Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre.

The Fever led for three quarters of the match, at times by as much as five-goals, but couldn’t withstand a blistering finish from the Swifts.

The Swifts were again caught napping at the outset as the Fever controlled the match to pull away and take leads into all three quarters. Mo’onia Gerrard was introduced at quarter time for the Swifts and immediately had an impact.

West Coast Fever’s WAIS scholarship holder Caitlin Bassett was dominant under the hoop with the GS deadly accurate with 43 goals from 50 attempts as West Coast looked to repeat their shock victory over the Swifts in the opening round of the 2009 ANZ Championship season.

Down by four goals heading into the final quarter, the Swifts’ Kim Green and Susan Pratley stepped up to turn the game on its head as New South Wales over turned the deficit. Pratley shot 14 goals from 16 attempts in the final stanza to finish the game with the figures of 33/40.

In other netball news:

The draw for the 2011 World Netball Championships in Singapore has been announced, with the Australian Diamonds set to take on Samoa, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka in the round robin phase of the competition starting in July.

WAIS scholarship holders Susan Fuhrmann, Caitlin Bassett and Kate Beveridge have featured for the Diamonds in recent times and will all be looking to force their way in to national coach Norma Plummer’s side.

The 16 participating teams in 2011 are: Australia, Barbados, Botswana, England, Fiji, Jamaica, Malaysia, Malawi, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago and Wales.