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Tactix gearing up to play in front of 'eighth player' - a packed Horncastle Arena

July 28, 2020

The Tactix get one home game this season due to various off-court issues but they plan to make the most of it.

The Mainland Tactix are gearing up to play their first and only home game this season in front of what's set to be a packed-out Horncastle Arena.

With the team fresh off back-to-back wins and now a very real chance of making the final, Tactix midcourter Charlotte Elley told 1 NEWS it’ll serve as the perfect energy injection for a gruelling campaign.

“It's like an eighth player for us,” Elley said.

“They often lift us when we're down and ride the wave when we're doing good so it’s awesome to have the eighth player out on the court.”

Any doubts their eighth player wouldn’t turn up for Thursday’s clash against the Stars have been put to bed too with nearly 5,000 tickets sold already - the biggest Tactix crowd in years.

Tactix coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek said the big crowd has her team “pretty amped”.

“We’ve been talking about it all year before any of this happened because we knew how lucky we were even to get one game because initially it was zero,” Delaney-Hoshek said.

“We pushed hard for this one game and since then we’ve been putting it out there – we’ve been telling everyone, our neighbours.

“The girls are advertising themselves because we are the whole organisation the marketers and everything else!”

It might just be the support they need as they scrap it out for a spot in the final. They're currently third on the ladder - one point behind the Mystics.

“We had bad luck earlier on with viruses and things like that but we're on track now and hungry for the win,” Delaney-Hoshek added.

It helps the Tactix have Ellie Bird who has the second highest shooting percentage in the competition. In their last game, Bird hit 37 from 37.

She admitted to 1 NEWS she knew the perfect streak she was on during the 47-40 win.

“I knew I was shooting 100 per cent and there was one point in the last quarter I took a longer shoot knowing it could’ve ruined my stats but did it anyway,” she said.

That perfect performance coincidentally was against the Stars.

Delaney-Hosek said it's faith and attitude like Bird’s that's winning them games.

“Every moment, you need to take the ball strongly and convert your opportunities.”

That next opportunity comes on Thursday at 7pm.

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