BSBL women’s: Aces Sky advance to grand final after 29-point preliminary final win over Tornadoes Red

Aces Sky cruised into the Bunbury Senior Basketball League women’s A-grade grand final after crushing Tornadoes Red by 29 points in the preliminary final at South West Sports Centre on Friday night.

A contest which looked to be a toss-up on paper instead played out in a far more one-sided fashion, with a dominant second-half run powering Sky to a 76-47 victory.

The result has seen Sky secure their place in a season-deciding match-up with reigning champions Tornadoes Black next week while sending Red, who finished the regular season in second after winning eight of their 12 games, tumbling out of the finals in straight sets.

Addison Edwards and Ella Edwards both starred for Sky in the win, leading their side with 17 points apiece as all but one of their 11 players troubled the scorers.

For Red, Isabella Andrew played something of a lone hand on the offensive end with a game-high 21 points.

The competition’s leading scorer Grace Adams was quiet by her own lofty standards, contributing 10 points to be Red’s only other double-digit scorer.

Sky led by eight points at half-time but the contest was still up for grabs in the third term, with early three-pointers from Jasmine Barrett and Sophia Tomas cutting their deficit back to four.

From there, Sky unleashed an offensive blitz, scoring 24 of the next 33 points — including a run of 12 unanswered — to grow the gap out to 19 points at the final break.

With their season on the line, Red looked to mount a comeback in the last quarter but Sky had done enough to make a certainty of the result.

In a tight first term, Red came up with the first six points of the game but a late three-pointer from Zahli Dewar allowed Sky to take a three-point lead into the first break.

A see-sawing second quarter saw Sky grow their lead out to seven points, Red cut it back to two, and Sky again expand it to 11.