Borrego, T-birds meet Magic in Grand Final

NEWCASTLE, Australia (CMC):

Carla Borrego and the Adelaide Thunderbirds will face the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic in the Grand Final of the ANZ Championship on Sunday on home turf at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

The Jamaican goal shooter and her team-mates discovered their opponents for the Championship match when the Magic notched their fourth win on the trot 54-49 to topple the New South Wales Swifts.

The Magic have struck form at just the right time and notched just the second victory for a New Zealand team in 41 matches in Australia over the three years of the competition. They also achieved the other win, recorded against the West Coast Fever last year.

Evergreen goal shooter Irene van Dyk's 44 goals from 45 attempts, goal attack Jodi Brown's vision and solid defence were the rocks upon which the Magic built their victory and shattered the Swifts' dream season.

Untouchable

The New South Wales side was untouchable during the regular season when they did not lose any of their 13 matches. But they failed to reproduce the same form in the finals, as they fell to both the T-birds and Magic in successive weeks.

In the meantime, Borrego and national team-mates Althea Byfield and Romelda Aiken feature in the top echelons of the statistical tables.

Most successful

Borrego has been the most successful goal shooter this season with 534 goals, but her 624 attempts, which made her the most targeted scorer, leaves her with a shooting percentage of 85.5 and the sixth-most accurate shooter heading into the Grand Final.

Byfield's 40 interceptions made her the second-sharpest defender in the Championship, while Aiken topped the list with 69 offensive rebounds, with Borrego second on 42.