The Sunshine Coast Lightning have survived a massive scare to hold on to a nail-biting 56-54 win over the Adelaide Thunderbirds at a sold-out Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
The Lightning won the first three quarters on Saturday night and looked set for a landslide triumph when they motored ahead by 13 with less than five minutes remaining, before narrowly seeing off the Thunderbirds' spirited 12-1 charge to the finish line.
Adelaide would have moved into top spot with a victory but instead find themselves out of form, having lost three of their past four, and in danger of forgoing the finals double-chance if they fall out of the top two.
Lightning midcourt duo Mahalia Cassidy and Laura Scherian were threats all evening, while captain Steph Wood and Cara Koenen took turns in troubling the Thunderbirds defence.
"We've really developed over the season," Cassidy said.
"We kind of treated this like our first final and next week (against Queensland Firebirds) is our 'final final'.
"The last five minutes were a bit shaky.
"We were really happy to get the job done."
Koenen buried three goals in a row late in the opening term, including an off-balance shot to beat the quarter-time buzzer, to break an early deadlock and give Sunshine Coast a 15-12 edge.
Thunderbirds captain Hannah Petty, making her return from injury, received a deafening roar from the parochial home crowd when she came off the bench midway through the second stanza to don the centre bib.
She had an instant impact, racking up 10 feeds for the term but Adelaide's shooters lost their radar and their general play was stagnant, allowing the Lightning to extend their buffer to 29-24 at halftime.
The visitors turned up the defensive heat in the third, while Wood caught fire at the other end in a dominant 17-10 quarter.
The match looked beyond repair when the Lightning led 55-42 before Shamera Sterling led a furious fightback with three intercepts and three deflections in the final period.
The T'birds also threw caution to the wind in attack, Lucy Austin and Eleanor Cardwell draining six super shots in Adelaide's 20-10 fourth-quarter rearguard before the Lightning held onto possession grimly in the dying stages.
