A relentless TWOR Central Pulse bounced back from their first defeat of the 2019 ANZ Premiership season last week to beat the Northern Stars 68-42 in Wellington tonight.
As they’ve done all season, the Central Pulse retained possession better than the Northern Stars to complete a clean sweep of regular season wins over the South Auckland side.
With the Stars already guaranteed an elimination final spot, head coach Kiri Wills opted to rest captain Leana De Bruin.
“With our playoff spot secure I wanted to give our younger defensive players the chance to get out there and stand up without our captain”.
Kayla Cullen and Storm Purvis paired up in the defensive circle, but Pulse feeders were finding shooter Aliyah Dunn with ease early on.
Kate Burley replaced Purvis to combat the high ball into Dunn as the Pulse built a seven-goal lead.
Maia Wilson and Charlee Hodges had their work cut out against the defensive pairing of Katrina Rore and Sulu Fitzpatrick.
A long shot from Wilson thanks to an earlier intercept from Holly Fowler closed the first quarter scores to 13-18.
The Pulse changed gears in the second quarter as they romped out to a ten-goal lead thanks to a number of Stars attacking errors.
After hobbling off the court in last weeks match, Temepara Bailey showed no signs of injury as she and Mila Reuelu-Buchanan hustled to try bring the Stars back into contention as the Pulse went to the main break up 33-23.
The scores ticked over to twenty goals in the third quarter which gave the Pulse coaches the luxury of clearing their bench.
The Stars will travel to Invercargill next week to take on the Southern Steel in their final regular season match.
