Aryang stars as Fever roll over Swifts
Sunday Aryang was a rock in defence as the Fever stunned the Swifts by 16 points.
Sunday Aryang shackled Helen Housby and the Jamaican shooters starred as West Coast Fever maintained their unbeaten start to the Super Netball season with a 75-59 away win over the NSW Swifts.
The Swifts eliminated Fever from the finals last season and outscored them 18-12 in the second quarter on Sunday at Ken Rosewall Arena, but West Coast dominated the rest of the game.
Fever (4-0) shot at 94 per cent and only conceded 35 penalties.
Swifts (2-2) couldn’t shut down the supply to Fever shooters Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard (60 from 62) and her Jamaican compatriot Shanice Beckford (8/9).
Midcourters Alice Teague-Neeld and Kelsey Browne notched 24 and 22 goal assists respectively.
Beckford proved the perfect foil to the ultra-consistent Fowler-Nembhard, making all six of her Super Shots.
Normally prolific Super Shot exponent Housby (3/7) missed all four of her two-point attempts and was constantly dogged by the persistent Aryang, who logged 11 deflections and six gains.
Aryang is arguably in career-best form this season and appears to have flourished since her long-term defensive partner and fellow Diamond Courtney Bruce switched to the Sunshine Coast Lightning.
“I think it’s just the hard work that I’m putting in during training and I’ve had this massive focus on trying to work on just grinding down my players and sticking on them for the whole 60 minutes and I think I did that today,” Aryang told Fox.
In a remarkable first half, each team enjoyed a good run after it took almost eight minutes for either side to score successive goals.
Fever played an almost perfect first quarter apart from a couple of turnovers, converting all 16 of their centre passes as well as turning all of their interceptions into scores.
Down 23-15 at quarter-time, the Swifts ratcheted up their defensive pressure and Sophie Fawns landed her first six Super Shots across the half to give the home side a three-goal lead.
A couple of Beckford two-pointers helped the Fever to a 35-33 halftime advantage.
“Definitely a bit of the low in the second and coming out for the second half and just being really strong on what we wanted to do and I think the defence gave us so much ball and made our job easier in attack,” Teague-Neeld told Fox.
The Swifts got within one In the first five minutes of the second half, but Fever then went back into overdrive, outscoring the home team 35-20 for the remainder of the game.
Fawns finished with eight out of 10 from two-point range and Sam Wallace-Joseph made 35 of 38 attempts.