By Kieren Vartuli

North Adelaide 83 | South Adelaide 66

The North Adelaide Rockets continued their excellent 2016 campaign thus far with a strong victory over the 9^th place South Adelaide Panthers on Saturday night. The win allowed them to climb to second place, just 4 points behind Norwood.

The opening term for the visitors began rough as they found themselves in team foul trouble very early into the quarter. With over 4.5 minutes remaining, they acquired 5 team fouls and gave the hosts the opportunity to do some serious damage on the scoreboard. Despite the physicality, North Adelaide were able to put an exclamation point on plays by finishing despite some serious contact. South managed to answer back with some excellent transition gameplay which kept them in the game. The Panthers’ had the game all tied up at 18 points with 22 seconds remaining in the first. Although this was not enough as the home side were able to strike before the buzzer to give them a 2 point lead.

North Adelaide were playing incredibly well on the offensive end as they executed some great hustle plays as well as scoring inside. The Rockets outscored the visitors 22-15 in the second and showed some promising signs on the defensive end. They forced two back-to-back shot clock violations stopping any steamrolling momentum. Despite some turnovers, South Adelaide were able to stay in the game with help from Ieva Nagy who had a big night scoring a game high 25 points. Nagy showed some excellent transition offence by making a slick jumper to narrow the deficit. As the halftime siren sounded, North were still leading by 9 points.

Coming out of the break, both clubs were trading buckets back and forth showing some good consistency from the field. When South Adelaide missed, North were able to tear down the defensive rebounds giving them a strong advantage on the offensive end. With South Adelaide’s great ball movement and excellent transition they were able to keep the game within comeback distance but thanks to their second quarter domination, the Rockets kept the margin at 12 points.

North Adelaide’s strong defensive presence early helped keep the strong margin relieving some pressure in the final term. South Adelaide played well as a team throughout alas it was not enough to take a victory. The Rockets were just too strong on both sides of the court. They had three players in double figures, Mader with 14, Elsworthy with 19 and Hill with a double-double with 24 points, 10 rebounds.

As the final siren blew, North Adelaide were able to extend their winning streak to 3 with a 17 point win.

Round 14: Saturday, 25 June at 6.30pm

North Adelaide v Norwood Flames @ Hillcrest

South Adelaide v West Adelaide @ Marion