The Adelaide Thunderbirds kept pressure on the top two sides following a record-breaking 58-34 victory over the Northern Mystics in the trans-Tasman netball league today.
Adelaide held the Mystics to their lowest ever score in the competition as they improved to 7-2 for the season, behind only the first-placed Melbourne Vixens (8-0) and the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic (7-1).
The 24-point triumph was also Adelaide's biggest winning margin in the tournament.
"That was the Mystics' lowest score ever so we'd have to be really happy with that," Adelaide coach Jane Woodlands said.
"We only beat them by one last year and they had essentially a very similar line up.
"So we're very pleased - it's our biggest win in the (tournament)."
In one of the fastest and most aggressive games of the season, Adelaide goal defence Georgia Beaton was forced off with an ankle injury at the mid-way point of the round 10 clash at the Distinctive Homes Dome.
Thunderbirds captain Natalie von Bertouch and goal attack Natalie Medhurst were the star performers, with Medhurst scoring 32 goals from 37 attempts.
While the South Australian club have firmed as one of the teams to watch this season, it is a very different story for the Mystics, who remain on three wins from nine games this season.
"We struggled to get the ball into the shooting end," Mystics coach Te Aroha Keenan said.
"I think we didn't play our best game out there and on the scoreboard that's the reality for us.
"We've had to fight hard for the wins that we have got and today we came up against a unit that was pretty polished."
The Thunderbirds were the marginally better side in the first half, but gained defensively as the game progressed and went on to score their seventh win from nine outings.
Keenan said there were several successive turnovers that didn't need to be made by her eighth-placed side.
"Going into the last quarter their hearts had gone out of it," she said.
"We've got four more games which is what we're looking towards at the moment ... if we don't make the top four we'll reassess where we go to from then."
