By JARROD POTTER
GRIDIRON VICTORIA
THE fairy-tale inaugural season of the Berwick Diamonds was brought to an end on Sunday as the Northern Lady Raiders came to ruin the party.
Outside of the starting drive of the match, ending in Diamonds’ quarterback Vanessa Roman hitting wide receiver Joanna Rashleigh for the touchdown, Berwick struggled to match pace with Northern on either side of the ball.
The Diamonds’ defense had to contend with a powerhouse performance from Lady Raiders’ quarterback Steph Pulis-Cassar – who threw 19/28 for a whopping 263 yards and four passing touchdowns.
From the shotgun Pulis-Cassar had too much on her bullet-like passes and the Lady Raiders’ O-line held out the Diamonds for the best part of the game, leaving Berwick to defend aerially on the pass instead of creating any sack or tackle pressure.
Despite an admirable performance from Roman and the Berwick offence, the Lady Raiders also had a monster presence on their defense as line-backer Paige Farrell blitzed the line and made sacks, tackles and interceptions virtually at will.
Diamonds’ coach Jamie Stafford also had to contend with his side getting battered and bruised in the contest – especially captains Cat Bouwhuis (ribs), who left the game in the second term after a huge clotheslined tackle, and running-back Bliss Love, who refused to stay down and returned to the game despite sporting a visible limp.
While the scorecard was 6-8 at half-time, favouring the Lady Raiders, the Diamonds could not stop the visitors from there on.
Pulis-Cassar took the first drive of the second half all the way up the field to create the side’s second of five touchdowns on the frigid cold morning at Sydney Pargeter Reserve.
From there the match belonged to the Lady Raiders as Berwick struggled on valiantly to create rare first down opportunities and make its way to the red zone only three times for the match.
The third touchdown came just before the final change and two more in the last quarter blew out the margin to 26 points by the final whistle.
It brought a sudden end to the Diamonds’ first season in the women’s league, but Stafford remained proud of his team despite the final result.
“Their quarterback had an exceptional game and it didn’t matter what we did, we couldn’t get pressure on her up front.
“Like I said to the girls in the huddle, you want to beat yourselves over things when you lose but sometimes you just get beaten by a superior opponent.
“The positives far outweigh the negatives in the first season up and again, the girls are allowed to be disappointed, I am too… but you need to shut that out and focus on what you did really well, learn from your mistakes and use it as fuel for next season.”
The Northern Lady Raiders face the Western Foxes at Sydney Pargeter Reserve on Sunday in the Gridiron Victoria grand final – the VicBowl.
