Tara Murray
Darley will have to make the Ballarat Netball League grand final the hard way, after losing a thrilling qualifying final to North Ballarat on Saturday.
In a replay of last season’s grand final, North Ballarat again had the wood on the Devils, coming away with a 47-45 win.
While disappointed, Devils coach Di McCormack said it was a good quality game of netball that could have gone either way.
“We made a couple of mistakes at the wrong part of the game and that was it,” she said.
“The game could have gone either way and it was a fantastic game of netball. Both teams came out and left little in the tank and played some great netball.”
McCormack said the one area they would look to improve was learning to adjust to the physicality a bit more.
She said they will take a lot of positives out of the game despite not getting the result they were after.
“Had a pass gone the other way or we didn’t turn the ball over when we shouldn’t have and it could have been a different result,” she said.
“We put too much pressure on ourselves late. We didn’t lose because we played a bad game of netball.
“At one stage we led by four or five goals and we let them come back into it. We are disappointed to lose, but sometimes you rather play all the way through the finals instead of having a week off.”
Rebecca Hicks shot 34 goals for the Devils, while Monique Nagle shot 11.
McCormack said that Shannon Blackman had a really good game in the midcourt, while Matilda Elliot had some really good moments in defence.
The Devils will face Lake Wendouree which upset the Sunbury Lions in 54-52, in a knockout semi final this weekend.
North Ballarat will play in the other semi final, with a grand final spot on the line.
McCormack said they thought that the Lions, who had beaten both the Devils and North Ballarat, would have made it through from that elimination final where they would have faced North Ballarat.
“We will not take the Lakers lightly,” she said. “We know we have to play well to get a better outcome for us than on Saturday.
“It should be a very good day and I think we match up well on them.”
It was a good day for the Lions other sides with their B-grade and under-19 sides both winning qualifying finals and will now play for grand final spots next week.
The Devils C-grade side is also through to the second week of finals after winning an elimination final.
