The Magic have taken an 11-0 record into the Dunedin men’s club basketball’s university holiday break, courtesy of a 96-79 win over the St Kilda Saints on Saturday.
It was a win that gave them a 3-0 regular season series sweep over their old rivals.
While all those signs point to dominance, it was more a period of it that separated the two teams on the weekend.
St Kilda stuck with the Magic through the first half, and the competition frontrunners led just 49-43 at halftime.
Yet by midway through the third quarter, that had ballooned to 67-48 by the time the Saints called timeout.
The St Kilda offence struggled to generate anything, and the Magic cashed in at the other end.
From there the game went back to even.
But that is so often how the wins come for the Magic, and has been for many years.
They will wear a team down and blow the game open in a five or 10-minute stretch.
On Saturday they had the majority of their stars available — including Nuggets trio Mac Stodart (24 points), Patrick Freeman (nine points) and Noah McDowall (16 points).
And they were key — alongside Dallas Hartmann (12 points) and Toby Lewis (seven points) — in that defining run.
It began with a Hartmann cut along the baseline, who finished after being left open as the defence collapsed on a driving Freeman, who dished off to the open man.
Another baseline cut yielded another basket for Hartmann.
McDowall hit a mid-range pull-up, before Freeman and Stodart proved too tough to stop around the hoop.
At the other end Mike Ruske (22 points) was the only player able to counter for the Saints.
And realistically, it was a stretch where they were just over-matched by way too much firepower.
The Saints emerged a better side after calling timeout.
Ruske continued to threaten, while Dan van Kerkhof (nine points) and Tyler Lapham (17 points) rediscovered their scoring touch.
But the deficit was too big and they never genuinely threatened again.
Despite that, it was the Saints that started better.
They forced the Magic into a timeout when Lawson Morris-Whye hit a corner three-pointer, giving St Kilda a 17-13 lead.
The Magic hit back with a run of their own to take the quarter-time lead at 23-19.
But the Saints hung around, and even as the Magic extended the margin to double-digits, Ruske, Lapham and Jamie MacDonald (18 points) chipped in to keep it to six at halftime.
In the other game Patrick Tipene led the City Rise Bombers with 21 points as they beat the Andy Bay Falcons 90-45.
The game between the Mid City Lions and Varsity was deferred.
The competition now goes on a two-week break for university holidays.
