IT was no surprise when Caroline Davey was named the Shirley Underwood Medallist for the Western Border netball Anzac Day clash between South Gambier and North Gambier.
The North goal shooter dominated the contest and was clearly the most influential player on court.
Davey converted 61 goals from 64 attempts in North’s winning scoreline of 74-36, hitting 17 straight in the second quarter, also with a perfect shooting display in the final stanza with 14 straight.
Davey was well serviced by the precision delivery of Ellie Gould, Kaitlin Egan and Amanda O’Shaughnessy, while at the other end of the court, 2017 Shirley Underwood Medallist Lisa Fyfe and Jordyn Adams – who debuted for North against her former team mates – picked up some critical intercept ball when sharing the goal defence role.
Despite the lop-sided scoreline, there were again some promising signs for the young Demons.
Georgia Hood put in another best-on-court performance for South, with well-timed moves and a willingness to attack the post.
Toni Sims was enticed out of retirement to help the undermanned Demons and she was outstanding on the attacking wing, driving hard and using her cool head and netball smarts to choose the right option with her feeds into the circle.
The Tigers set the win up early with a 17-6 opening quarter and were it not for the accurate finishing of Hood and Imogen Walker, who converted their opportunities without registering a miss, the damage would have been worse.
The Demons bounced back in the second after moving Zoe Duncan to the defensive wing, Alyssa Boylan to goal defence and Tori McIntyre to goal keeper.
However, it was the attack line where the most improvement came as they looked after the ball better and created a lot more scoring opportunities, converting 13 from 17 in what would have been a great quarter were it not for the perfect shooting of Davey.
North would no doubt be happy with its consistency of effort across the four quarters, in terms of scoring and also defensive efforts.
South now turns its attention to the winnable contest against Casterton Sandford, while North has the best part of a couple of weeks to plot victory against the Roos.
