University of Newcastle are through to their first Newcastle championship netball grand final after beating minor premiers Souths in a hard-fought battle at National Park on Saturday while West Leagues Balance powered through the other semi-final.
While the lead chopped and changed between Souths and University in the major semi-final before the latter secured a 46-42 win, West beat Nova in the minor semi-final 72-43.
University, who replaced Forsythes in Newcastle's premier competition in 2020 and finished the regular season in second this year, trailed 10-9 at the end of the first quarter but took a 20-15 lead into the main break.
They were down 32-31 at three-quarter time but set up the victory with a strong first five minutes of the last period.
Coach Traci Baber described the performance as "the most consistent hour we've produced".
"Everyone just did their job and we slugged it out to the end," a thrilled Baber said.
"The lead changed a million times and it was up for grabs, but we got on a bit of a roll at the start of the last quarter and got about three or four up then we just played really smart netball.
"The last grand final was when I had Forsythes in 2016 but there were only two of these girls in that game - Karlie [Robards] and Sabina [Gombosa]. Of all of the other girls, nobody has been in a grand final before so it's very exciting.
"We're normally clawing our way through the minor semi then just getting pipped in that final, thereabouts all the time."
A disappointed Lions coach Tracey van Dal knows Souths have a hard task ahead of them to now beat a firing West in the preliminary final next weekend with the winner joining University in the championship decider.
"No doubt it's going to be difficult against West because they've got a completely new line-up now with a whole team full of premier league players, which they obviously haven't had all year," van Dal said post-match on Saturday.
"But all we can focus on is going back to the drawing board, doing the basics well and just making sure we play for 60 minutes, which is what let us down today.
"We were just too slow out of the blocks at the start of that last quarter and it was hard playing catch-up."
West, who finished the regular season fourth, led at every break against third-placed Nova. They were up 16-10 by the end of the first quarter, 33-21 at half-time then 53-30 at the last break.
West coach Tracey Baggs had a full-strength complement for the first time this year and felt "defensive pressure across the court" proved the difference.
She reserved special praise for goal defence Jemma Lucas and goalkeeper Ella Butcher who performed strongly to restrict Nova's attack.
"They're young girls who are in our opens team that have earned playing up into championship and held their own," Baggs said.
"We changed things up a lot too. Every quarter we changed shooting combinations so made Nova have to adjust."
It was a devastating end to what has been a strong season for Nova but player-coach Laura Glendenning conceded Thunder were "completely outplayed".
"They had a really strong line-up and unfortunately, whilst defeated, we were defeated by a better team," Glendenning said.
"It wasn't because of what we did necessarily. We didn't waste a lot of ball, we didn't throw a lot of ball away. They were fantastic in defence and fantastic in attack.
"But I'm beyond proud of my team. We've constantly showed up and always been positive and had each other's back. We're disappointed but we can hold our heads up high and know that we gave it our best shot."
