Southern Tigers v Norwood Flames
Saturday July 26, 2008, 6:30pm at Morphett Vale

	Southern Tigers	Norwood Flames
Minor Round Record	4th - 12 wins and 6 losses	5th - 10 wins and 8 losses
Head Coach	Travis Leaver	Damian Weeks
Likely Starters	Leah Cannon Stephanie Gates Kate Mousley Gillie Hendrie Tracey Beatty	Nicole Romeo Jess Foley Jess Smart Lisa Ackroyd Jacqui O’Malley
Top Scorer	Tracey Beatty – 13.8 ppg	Jess Foley – 32.0 ppg
Top Rebounder	Tracey Beatty – 13.5 rpg	Jess Foley – 11.3 rpg
Top Assists	Leah Cannon – 4.3 apg	Nicole Romeo – 4.8 apg
Head to head	6/4/2008         Southern Tigers 66 d Norwood 60 31/5/2008      Norwood Flames 97 d Southern Tigers 71

Just how good is Jess Foley?

Returning from a WNBA tryout and registering mere minutes before the Round 12 deadline, Foley’s form has been exquisite. Although not eligible for statistical awards, Foley has averaged an incredible 32 points per game and won 3 player of the week awards in the 7 weeks she has played.

More importantly for Norwood, the Flames finished the season on a four game winning streak, and were 6 and 2 with Foley and 4 and 6 without. Significantly, Foley’s first game for Norwood was against Southern, in which the then 6th placed Flames defeated the equal first Tigers by 26 points.

Despite a Metro season title, the youthful Tigers surprised many with their impressive start to the season, and shared part of the lead for 9 of the 18 minor rounds. Mid season injuries had an impact, and a season ending knee injury to rookie centre Hannah Richards made it even harder for Travis Leaver to provide any respite for Tracey Beatty. Even so, Beatty has the ability to disrupt any opposition offence, almost doubling the block totally of her closest rival in that category.

Beatty is scoring less than she did in 2007, but this is as a good sign for the Tigers, who have managed to find other avenues to score. Mildura pickup Stephanie Gates has been solid, while point guard Leah Cannon has successfully handled additional backcourt duties in the absence of Tam Walker.

Cannon will have a great battle with 3 point assassin Nicole Romeo, whose range at Morphett Vale extends beyond court 3. With 38 three point makes, she leads the league in that category by a streak, and the Southern scout on her will include many long closeouts.

With each team fielding a player requiring special attention to the extreme, expect defensive strategies to play a strong part in the outcome of this one.