The Launceston Tornadoes have given new coach Richard Dickel a winning start to his tenure after staging an impressive second half fight-back to defeat Southern Conference leaders and reigning premier Dandenong by 11 points at Elphin Stadium on Saturday.
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After a slow start the Torns trailed the Ranger 24-12 at quarter time but outscored them 19-16 in the second quarter to reduce the deficit to 40-31 at half-time.
The Tornadoes came out firing in the third stanza dominating the quarter 22 points to 10 to lead 53-50 at the last change and finished off with a 16-8 final quarter to record a confidence-boosting 69-58 victory.
Tayla Roberts starred with a double-double of 24 points and 12 rebounds with captain Lauren Mansfield again leading from the front with 11 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists.
Bec Abel shot 11 points and had four rebounds with Ellie Collins sinking 10 points.
“The first half we didn’t come out with the right intensity,” Dickel said.
“But to the girls credit they took onboard some things we practised during the week and really got after it defensively and rebounded the ball in the second half and from that we made some shots.
“It was a pretty good performance to play the way we did. To hold a team to 18 points in the second half you are going to win a lot of games if that happens - we locked in a little bit better and changed up what we’d done and it worked.
“Tayla was brilliant offensively again but it was some of the young girls who stepped up like Bec Able and Paige French coming off the bench who played some good minutes for us.”