Jess Foley has capped off an unbelievable season with a championship, Halls medal and Grand Final MVP honours after the Norwood Flames completed their unbeaten 20-0 run to back-to-back titles with a convincing 71-52 win over familiar foe North Adelaide in Saturday night’s epic blockbuster at Adelaide Arena.

The heavy favourites were pushed for most of the match by a worthy adversary in the Rockets, but last year’s grand finalists were ultimately outgunned again by Norwood’s WNBL experience in Amy Lewis, Jess Good, Rebecca Duke and 2013 Halls medallist Foley.   

Foley received the award for her stat-stuffing performance of 16 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals on the night, all the while orchestrating the Flames offense masterfully and controlling the tempo of the match.

However Foley would have been pushed by athletic backcourt partner Amy Lewis (18 points, 3 rebounds) for the award, who sparked the Flames at crucial stages of the match with some important plays that included 4-6 shooting from outside.

The match proved to be a high-scoring affair early, the scores locked at 26 apiece at the first break after Norwood’s perimeter stars wasted no time getting involved, Lewis connecting on three of her four triples inside the first six minutes.

Meanwhile Foley also contributed 5 points and 2 assists of her own to have the Flames rolling early.

However North managed to not only limit the Flames offensive outburst but match it. Jaimie-Lee Peris (18 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals) paved the way for her teammates with 8 first quarter points out of the low-post, complemented by some sharp perimeter shooting from Shannon McKay who added two triples of her own for the quarter.   

Lewis continued her long-range barrage at the start of the second with another triple, but it was Norwood’s endeavour on the offensive glass that earned them a favourable 6-point margin at the half.

The Flames outrebounded North’s strong interior 7-2 in the second period alone on the offensive glass, providing a multitude of second-chance points that included an impossible three-point play from Good late in the second to give the Flames the ascendency at the major break.

The match turned into somewhat of a stalemate in the third, with both teams struggling to convert for much of the quarter before a lapse in concentration cost the Rockets dearly, allowing 11 unanswered points to end the quarter and saw the lead pushed out to 15.

Again it was Lewis’ injection of speed that enabled the Flames to break the game open, picking off an errant pass and racing down the other end for an easy bucket immediately after being subbed in for the final two minutes, before moments later assisting on a Stabile basket following a slashing drive to the hoop.

North threw everything they had at the Flames in the last but rattling the veteran-laden Flames was always going to be a difficult task, consecutive baskets to Lewis and Good ensuring the lead stayed in double-digits before Foley’s three-point dagger all but sealed the game, pushing the margin beyond 20 with three and a half remaining. 

 Ultimately it was Norwood’s dominance of the glass that was the deciding factor, outrebounding North’s frontcourt 56-31.

Their rebounding supremacy included a 21-5 advantage in the offensive category, a telling statistic that influenced Norwood’s advantage of 14 second-chance points to the Rockets 5.

Young centre Jess Good was instrumental in the victory, pulling down 15 rebounds herself and adding 9 points, whilst managing to limit the influence of last week’s preliminary final hero Jo Hill to just 6 points and 11 rebounds.

Meanwhile Peris was best for North, her 18 points good for equal top-scoring rights on the night.

Shannon McKay was also commendable, adding 9 points to her team’s total.

The back-to-back title is the second in Norwood’s history after the team achieved the feat for the first time in 1999 and 2000.

By Lachlan Sellar

Stats webcast available here.