North Heidelberg 1 have continued their unbeaten start to the Cleaning Melbourne Division 1 senior netball season with a seven-goal victory over a resilient Diamond Creek 1 outfit at La Trobe Sports Stadium.
In what was a seesawing contest between the top two sides of Division 1, a strong third quarter paved the way for the Bulldogs to finish 61-54 winners once the final whistle rang.
The win moves North Heidelberg 1 two games clear of Diamond Creek 1, who remain two games clear of the third-placed Fitzroy Stars 1.
Attacking circle star Bec Colwell was at her best on Friday night and ended the match scoring 53 of North Heidelberg’s 61 goals, her highest single-game tally for the season.
Meanwhile Paris Bosschieter impressed at goal attack, and alongside her midcourters, provided consistently strong delivery into the shooting circle, often in the favour of the star goal shooter in Colwell.
The Creekers weren’t without their contributors, with goal shooter Emmalia Blake finishing with 46 goals and providing a strong presence in attack to compliment her sharp shooting.
Diamond Creek’s defence also stood tall at stages of the contest, particularly in the early moments of the opening term, where they made life difficult for the Bulldogs attackers to get easy access to the net.
North Heidelberg’s attack was eventually able to break through late in the quarter, gaining some important ascendancy to head into the first break up by three goals.
The reigning premiers were able to build on that late momentum in the following term, rushing out to an eight-goal lead inside the first five minutes of the second quarter.
But the Creekers returned serve immediately, scoring the next five goals to cut the margin back down to three with nine minutes remaining.
Despite the opportunity for Diamond Creek to gain an advantage close to half time, the Bulldogs again were able to control the tempo of the match and push their lead out to five goals by the main break.
Following a goal-for-goal start to the third, the Bulldogs made their move between the fifth and 11th minute mark of the term, pushing out their advantage to a game-high 14 goals during that period.
Diamond Creek were able to fight back in the final four minutes of the term to stay in the hunt but found themselves chasing a 10-goal deficit in the last quarter.
With a healthy lead intact, North Heidelberg were again able to control proceedings throughout most of the last term, not allowing their opponents to gain any momentum in the pivotal stages of the quarter.
And whilst the Creekers did gain some ascendancy in the second half of the quarter, it was too little too late as the Bulldogs did enough to produce a seven-goal win, making it eight victories from eight in the 2024 winter campaign.
