The Andy Bay Falcons held the South Pac Magic scoreless for six minutes in the second quarter to establish a 15-point lead.
When the comeback came, they repeated the effort through the final six minutes to close out the win.
It ended the Magic’s unbeaten start to the Dunedin women’s club season, as the Falcons bounced back from last week’s heavy loss, claiming a 75-60 win.
Alexa Duff and Elise Carline led the Falcons’ offence with 21 and 20 points respectively.
They were ably supported by a group that stepped up in different stretches.
Madi Loudon (11 points), Zoe Melville (10 points) and Laura Ring (eight points) all showed their value.
But it was the ability to keep the Magic scoreless for those stretches that won this one.
Shanti Kara (19 points) and Millie Simpson (17 points) helped the Magic to a 19-18 lead late in the first quarter.
Back-to-back three-pointers from Ring sparked a Falcons run to give them a 26-21 lead at the break.
At that point the Falcons defence locked in.
The Magic offence had no answer, and the Falcons took full advantage, streaking out to a 38-23 lead.
Melville was particularly prominent through that stretch, as the Falcons showed their depth — much of the period coming with Duff on the bench.
That is not to say Duff was not influential, on both ends of the court.
She hit two three-pointers and showed off a well-rounded passing game, to help extend the Falcons’ 44-30 halftime lead to 62-47 at the end of the third quarter.
At that point the Magic rallied.
Kara and Tia Pavihi took over, as they went on a 13-2 run of their own to open the fourth quarter.
That took them as close as six, with the score at 66-60 with six minutes remaining.
It was all the Magic could manage, though.
The Falcons defence stepped up once more, and the Magic did not score again.
Carline completed a three-point play, before finishing off an offensive rebound to make it 71-60.
Duff had the final say, though.
She hit a pretty mid-range jumper in the key to cap her scoring night, before a final pass along the baseline to find Melville for the last basket.
In the other game, Tyler Mitchell and Sophie Adams had 10 points each, as Varsity beat Ajax 44-33 in a low-scoring affair.
In men’s club basketball games on Saturday, the Mid City Magic asserted its dominance with a 101-60 thrashing of the City Rise Bombers, in a top-of-the-table clash.
The Mid City Lions beat Varsity 81-62, while the St Kilda Saints beat the Andy Bay Falcons 109-77 in the battle of the two winless teams.
