THE Orange Autos Rockingham Flames might have been the standout team all year long in the women's SBL but to win the championship coach Ryan Petrik always knew his team would have to go through the Kalamunda Eastern Suns at some point.

Coming into the 2014 season, both the Flames and Eastern Suns were among the championship fancies, both play a similar style particularly on offence by jacking up threes and putting the ball on the floor, and both finished the regular season in first and fourth position respectively.

The Flames then beat the Willetton Tigers in two games in the quarter finals while the Suns needed three to down the Soprano Lady Cougars to set up a semi final berth between Rockingham and Kalamunda with the winner to advance to the 2014 women's SBL grand final.

Petrik did a terrific job all season long leading the Flames to the minor premiership with his team having won their opening 17 games straight before losing to the Eastern Suns, and then finishing up with a 20-2 record.

It is set to be a star-studded semi final series as well with the Flames team including Samantha Whitcomb, Darcee Garbin, Jacinta Bourne, Tarsha Fletcher, Kaye Tucker and Talisia Bourne, and the Suns line up featuring Alison Schwagmeyer, Jennie Rintala, Melissa Moyle, Adrienne Jones, Sarah-Jane Knox and Chelsea Armstrong.

As much as the players' individual talents will be a big factor, Petrik knows that of all teams in the women's SBL the Flames and Suns know one another the best, and given they play a similar style as well it's going to potentially be a series for the ages.

"It was always going to be a case of not if but when we'd play Kalamunda in the finals, they were always a very good team but as soon as they added Swag we knew the match-up would be inevitable," Petrik said.

"For two teams so talented there won't be too many surprises. I'd be shocked if any two teams had more film on one another as what Craig and I have. I think I have about 80 per cent of the games Kalamunda have played in the last three years on my hard drive, and he'd be the same with us.

"I'm sure both of us will have some X and O's up our sleeves as we'd both be pretty confident of an inevitable match-up, but player tendency wise there won't be any surprises."

Given Rockingham's early season win over Kalamunda came when the Suns were without Schwagmeyer, and then the Eastern Suns' win to end the Flames' winning run is a loss that Petrik felt was actually good for his team to go through, those match ups mean little coming into the semi finals.

While neither team has any sort of an edge heading into the series, Petrik does know that whoever wins will well and truly have earned a grand final berth for 2014.

"The regular season match-ups between the two teams counts for very little. We smacked them up there but that was without Swag, then they got us in a thriller down here, but most of our girls were relieved to lose that to get the 'when will they finally lose' monkey off our back," Petrik said.

"We're probably the two most similar teams in the league, especially on the offensive end. Both revolve around motion systems, hoist a ton of threes, and put the ball on the floor looking to get to the rim.

"They're a little bit more a pressure D team on defence where we're a bit more containment, and they're a little taller than us where's we're faster, but other than that the two teams are super similar. It's probably fitting that the reward for winning this series is a grand final berth."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Mick Cronin