The AIS women’s basketball team have gone down to Levezzini Parma (Italian Div 1 Professional Team) 70-62 in their second game of their tour of Italy.

Coming off a seven point loss the night before the AIS started slowly allowing Parma to get out to an early lead of 11 (13 - 2).

To try and combat the scoring flow, the AIS went into a zone and came up with five consecutive defensive stops. Unfortunately they could not capitalise on these stops by converting scores down the other end. Parma went into the quarter time break with a 22 - 12 lead. Australian Opal player and former AIS scholarship holder, Laura Summerton, was doing the most damage with her hard running down the floor for transition lay ups. She finished the quarter with 8 points.

After a few minutes in the second quarter of both teams trading baskets, the Italians stepped up the intensity and pressure. Liz Cambage (AIS) was being double teamed every time she caught the ball, as well as the young Australian’s backcourt having to take on a full court trapping defence. This resulted in a few too many turnovers which gave all the momentum to the Parma who stretched their lead out to 17 (35 - 18) with 4 minutes to go in the half. After a time out, the AIS settled and handled the pressure much better but still faced a 17 point margin going into the half time break.

With a more assertive and positive attitude the AIS matched it with Parma in the third quarter with both teams scoring 17 points apiece. The first play of the second half set the tone with Liz Cambage pulling in a monster rebound, making a good outlet to Jillian Haughton, who delivered a super long court pass to Gretel Tippett for a lay up. From this the AIS started to get their familiar running game going and convert easier baskets.

The use of a change up zone defence from the AIS in the last quarter seemed to rattle Parma, with the Institute getting valuable defensive stops and went on an 8-0 run to cut the margin to 8 with three minutes to go in the game. Parma called a time out but even after the time out the AIS came up with another five stops in the row but couldn’t convert down the other end to reduce the margin any further.

Parma went on to win the game 70 – 62 with Laura Summerton and Jenni Screen the stand out players for their team.

For the AIS Tess Madgen top scored with 14pts (5 rbds), followed by Rachel Jarry with 12pts (4 rbs). Bree Farley had a sound all round game finishing with 5 pts, 6 rbs and 4 steals. Gretel Tippett was the team’s highest rebounder for the game with 9 (4pts).

(Other scorers: Liz Cambage 5pts, Ash Karaitiana 5pts, Alice Kunek 3pts, Steph Cumming 3pts, Kelsey Ireland 3pts, Jillian Haughton 2pts, Georgia Minear 2pts, Michelle Joy 2pts)

The AIS now travels to La Spezia, Italy to take on a Division 2 team from that region.