Southside Flyers storm home in the final term of the season to take out WNBL title

A Teal tsunami washed Perth Lynx off the court as Southside Flyers took out the WNBL championship on the back of a remarkable performance.

A Teal tsunami washed Perth Lynx off the court as Southside Flyers stormed off with the WNBL championship on the back of a remarkable performance that bordered on basketball perfection.

The 115-81 game three hammering sealed a second title in five years since the club’s 2019 rebrand — and a rich reward for a fourth grand final appearance in that period.

Southside had seven players in double-digits and was unstoppable from the field, making more than half of its field goals (53 per cent), including an eye-watering 10-18 from deep.

The Flyers smashed the broken Lynx on the glass 51-34 and held them to just 37 per cent from the field, repeatedly forced their potent stars into taking shots that would have had coach Ryan Petrik pulling his hair out.

The Flyers had heroes everywhere but it was the blanketing lockdown job captain Bec Cole subjected Lynx flamethrower Amy Atwell to that might have been the biggest factor.

Cole, pre-series, even forced herself to watch last season’s heartbreaking grand final sweep at the hands of Townsville — “I felt the pain last year of getting all the way here and then losing and I’m not bloody doing that again.”

Rebecca Cole starred in the Flyers’ game three win. Picture: Kelly Defina/Getty Images

She didn’t, wearing Atwell — who hit nine treys in game one on her way to 30 points — like a glove in holding her to just three first-half shots, while impacting on the scoreboard with 17 points.

Young import Jas Dickey, who was benched earlier in the season after a tough initiation, franked her game one breakout with a team-high 19 points in just 18 minutes, breaking the game open as Perth, at times, almost forgot she was on the floor.

Southside’s bruising frontline in Lauren Jackson (12 points) and Mercedes Russell (13 points, 13 boards) has carried the Flyers for most of the season but it was the feisty guard combination of veteran Leilani Mitchell and emerging Opal Maddie Rocci (15 points) who started the fireworks, combining for 21 first-half points.

Mitchell was the conductor — every time she touched it, good things happened — and the 38-year-old called on all her experience with the gaudy line of 15 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds and 3 steals.

As the Flyers’ lead extended beyond 20 in the third quarter, the third giant in the Flyers’ three-headed monster Carly Ernst (15) went bang, bang, bang with three consecutive makes from deep.

Russell, spurred after she was snubbed from the WNBL’s MVP voting despite averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds on the season, was fittingly named Rachael Sporn Medallist as the best player in the series, for her 14.3 points 12.6 rebounds — and that game-two buzzer-beater that will live long in WNBL history.

The Flyers were too good in game three. Picture: Kelly Defina/Getty Images

Make it a seventh WNBL title for the GOAT Lauren Jackson, 25 years after her first, and it looks increasingly likely she’ll look to go on for another season in the domestic competition — and perhaps the Opals’ Paris Olympic campaign.

“That’s crazy, It’s awesome, I’m so proud of the girls, they were incredible,” Jackson said on the ESPN broadcast, post-game.

“We’ve worked for it this year. It has been a hard year for us to get here and for us to win it like this after what happened in game one here, is special.

“We’ve been up and down and I think people ruled us out but whenever we’ve had our backs against the wall we’ve been able to respond.

When Jackson walked to the bench with five minutes to go and the Flyers up 25, Southside fans who packed the unfamiliar Parkville stadium rose in unison.

For Perth, it’s heartbreak in the worst way.

After an emphatic game one win, the Lynx felt like odds on to sweep to victory in Perth.

But a combination of a big lift from Southside, ineptitude from the officials and self-inflicted wounds led to a game two home loss — at the buzzer and a squared series.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen for the Lynx and the fired up Flyers delivered the knockout blow

Atwell didn’t make her first field goal until half way through the second quarter and, while she did end with a game-high 22 points, the damage was done.

The Lynx were also hampered by Anneli Maley’s disappearance.

In the wake of a shattering last minute of game two where the former WNBL MVP missed a pair of crucial free throws and a layup that would have broken the deadlock, scored just five points and missed 12 of her 14 shots.

The three-decade search for the franchise’s second WNBL title extends at least another season.

Originally published as Southside Flyers storm home in the final term of the season to take out WNBL title