Sydney Uni Flames drew first blood in their best-of-three WNBL semi-final series against Townsville Fire with Saturday night's crushing 111-69 game-one victory at Brydens Stadium.
Guard Alex Wilson starred for the Flames with a game-high 27 points, while playmaker Leilani Mitchell and American import Asia Taylor added 19 apiece.
Townsville's loss was believed to be the worst in club history and one of the most one-sided finals wins by any WNBL team.
Four-time WNBL MVP Suzy Batkovic tallied 18 points and 10 rebounds for the reigning two-time champions Fire and Mia Murray finished with 17 points.
Sydney will take a full head of steam into next Friday's second game in Townsville, while Fire coach Claudia Brassard has plenty of adjustments to make, mostly at the defensive end.
Leading by 15 at half-time, the Flames raised the bar in the third quarter and took an unassailable 90-51 lead into the final period.
Sydney knocked down a sizzling 55 per cent of their shots for the game, including 10-from-25 from three-point range.
Townsville made just 38 per cent and also suffered at the free throw line (13/22).
Early on, Sydney were up 17-16 before baskets by Wilson and Belinda Snell triggered an 8-0 run to push the lead out to 25-16 at quarter-time.
Taylor headed to the bench with her third foul early in the second period, but the home team were firing and had eight players in the scoring column by half-time.
The Flames connected on an impressive 51 pe rcent of their shots in the half and took a 52-37 lead in to the main break, with Wilson (15 points) leading the charge.
Batkovic was the standout for Townsville with 14 points and seven rebounds.
Any hopes of a Fire comeback were swiftly extinguished, as the Flames blew the margin out to 30 midway through the third period.
Sydney's red-hot offensive display was perfectly summed up by Tahlia Tupaea's successful shot from halfway in the closing seconds of the quarter.
Wilson won a title with the Fire in 2014 and relished the chance to shine against her former team in such a high stakes contest.
"I always like to have a good game against Townsville," Wilson said.
"Any time you come up against your old club you want to show them what you've got."
"No one would've seen this coming," Flames coach Cheryl Chambers said of the 42-point rout.
"It was just a fantastic team performance but there's still work to be done because they're two-time champions and it'll be a different ball game up in Townsville."
Townsville coach Claudia Brassard admitted she had a battle on her hands to restore her team's belief.
"Of course it's going to rock our confidence," Brassard said.
"How we bounce back from this is certainly going to be a test of our character.
"We know they have scorers everywhere and they demonstrated that tonight."
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