The Southern Steel's seven-game winning streak was snapped last night in its ANZ Premiership elimination final in Invercargill.
The Northern Stars - who had won just one game in their last eight - walked away 56-53 victors.
Their defence was smothering, forcing the Steel attack to work hard to find its shooters.
That yielded too many turnovers, while the 81% shooting was slightly too low.
The Steel held a slight dominance early, but a swing through the first 20 minutes of the second half was pivotal.
Stars defenders Leana de Bruin and Storm Purvis proved difficult to penetrate and deprived the Steel shooters of ball.
That pressure told and eventually forced the Steel into several changes - notably taking off star goal shoot Lenize Potgieter and bringing on Jennifer O'Connell.
Several mistakes in a row from the Steel attack followed early in the fourth quarter.
The Stars jumped out to a 48-42 lead early in the fourth quarter and that proved the key period.
Potgieter returned not long after and while the Steel got the deficit back to two, it was too much to overhaul.
It was a loss coach Reinga Bloxham said left the Steel ''really gutted''.
''I think we let ourselves down, to be honest.
''Probably in that third quarter we lacked drive on attack, we lacked connection, it just wasn't our normal game.
''We were put under a lot of pressure by the Stars, so I'll give them credit for that.
''It was difficult to feed the ball in, it was difficult to get the ball to the circle edge at times.
''So they really did their homework to keep us up and off the circle edge.
''I'm just quite gutted. It wasn't the way we wanted to finish the season.''
The Steel had the better start, but the Stars signalled they were there to play.
Kate Heffernan came up with an intercept and deflection early, helping the Steel to a 7-3 lead.
The Steel looked to be patient with the ball, but found itself having to work hard to get free.
That yielded two turnovers and the Stars shot back in front at 8-7.
Both traded the lead, but it was the Steel ahead 15-14 at the first break.
The Steel defence lifted and helped its team to a 26-20 lead at one point.
The Steel was still having to work hard to navigate the long arms of De Bruin and Purvis, though.
They enabled the Stars to hit back, although the Steel maintained a 30-27 lead at halftime.
The Stars evened that up straight away and began to wrest momentum away.
Feeding the ball became challenging for the Steel and prompted O'Connell's injection late in the quarter.
It was the Stars that broke away, a Gina Crampton feed going awry and Charlee Hodges capitalising at the other end.
They led 43-41 going into the final break and quickly extended that to 48-42.
The Steel mounted a comeback on Potgieter's return.
But the Stars did just enough - the Steel coming up one turnover short.
The Stars now play the Central Pulse in Monday's final in Porirua.
