By David Tonks

(Top Minor Round v Winner Qualifying Final)
(Includes Round 2 & 10 results when the Teams last played)

Forestville v West Adelaide, Sat, August 7th, 6.30pm at Wayville
R 2: Forestville 76 (Mahony 16, Bow, Newley 15) def West 64 (Martin 23, Webber 16)
R 10: Forestville 81 (Mahony 20, Fergus 18) def West 71 (Martin 21, Vordermaier 19)   
                         
Forestville enters this week's game against the Bearcats on a nine game winning streak which started with the victory against West in Round 10. On that occasion the Eagles put together a 23 point first and second quarter creating a 14 point lead at halftime, 46-32. West did make some inroads into the margin but never recovered from their opening quarter score of 13 points, eventually losing that match by 10 points.

In the first clash in round 2, back in March, the Eagles set up the win with productive first and third quarters where they outscored the Bearcats by 15 points for the two terms. West matched it with the Eagles for the other two periods. The Bearcats did close to within 6 points late in the last quarter before the Eagles steadied, scoring six out of the last eight points of the contest to claim both minor round games.

Forestville earned the rest last weekend for finishing the minor premier while the Bearcats slugged it out with the Sabres, winning the Qualifying Final by 4 points at Pasadena. In that match, playing Coach Sam Woosnam was deadly from downtown in the last, hitting three triples to shoot her side to victory.

In this match Forestville will rely on Mia Newley who has had an outstanding season averaging 19.2 points per game and 12.8 rebounds, Jess Mahony (13.1ppg & 8rpg), Jess Fergus (16.8ppg) and Jamie-Lee Bow (10.1ppg) to do the bulk of the scoring to post a winning score. That quartet has featured heavily as the Eagles leading scorers in most of the minor round games this season.

The Bearcats big guns are Nikita-Lee Martin who is averaging 18.6 points per game and 8.4 rebounds, Sam Woosnam (15.2ppg & 9.1rpg), Irene Sourlatzis (9.9ppg), Trudy Holland (9.2ppg & 8.4rpg) and Ashlea Vordermaier (8.9ppg). Of that group Martin is the only player to have played every game this year.

West is loaded with players who can handle the pace and pressure of finals games (Woosnam, Holland and Martin are all members of the Adelaide Lightning WNBL Team). The Bearcats won its last Grand Final in 2007 when it defeated Norwood 77-57. Forestville is the reigning premier and has participated in 7 Grand Finals since 2001, winning four of them.

Forestville with only two losses for the season, one against Sturt by 1 point and one against Norwood by 9 points, has been the pace setter of the Women's competition. West will be out to avoid a repeat of the Preliminary final loss of last season.

This promises to be an outstanding contest with a Grand Final berth on offer to the winner.