WNBL Round Up – Week 4

By Ellie Shaxon on October 22, 2013

The weekend saw all eight WNBL teams in action for the first time this season, which proved to show the competitive nature of the new league structure with another overtime fixture and a home loss for defending champions Sheffield Hatters.

Top of the league Nottingham Wildcats continued to show their good form with a win against Manchester Mystics.

Despite what turned out to be a convincing win for the home side, Mystics held the Wildcats to a narrow eight point advantage at half time. However, the home side stepped it up a gear on both ends of the floor, taking the second half 35-20 and going on to win 71-48. Siobhan Prior led her team with 21, followed by 14 from Samantha Baranowski and Jessica Scannell adding 11.

Top scorer Prior is impressed with her team’s early league success following a slow start to last season:

“It has been many years getting to this point but we are really excited this year and believe it is going to be a successful one for us,” she said after the game. “Every player and every coach are together and we all have the same goal and we are all working hard to achieve it. So now we just wait and hopefully watch all our hard work pay off.”

After an impressive win against Loughborough last weekend, Cardiff Archers proved their good form as they took down reigning treble champions Sheffield Hatters, to hand them their first home league game loss in almost five years.

The competitive nature of the game was evident from the offset, with Archers holding the lead at half time by only one point and the game tied at 49 a piece going into the fourth quarter. Both teams gave a huge offensive effort in the final stanza, however it was four points that ended up separating the two teams, giving Archers a 73-77 win taking them to 2-0 this season.

Player/Coach Stef Collins led her team with 25, followed by Raven with 17 and Jenkins scoring 13. Kisha Lee top scored for Sheffield with 21 points.

Barking Abbey were eager to achieve their first win of the season after a disappointing overtime loss to Manchester two weeks previously. However, they once again took a narrow overtime loss to Northumbria despite leading the game by 8 with two minutes remaining in the fourth.

Despite the loss, Clark was encouraged by his young team’s performance.

“I’m pleased with the performance, it was a great improvement on the Manchester loss,” he said after the game. “We built the 10 point lead and then started to think about things too much.”

Leola Spotwood led Team Northumbria with 18 points whilst Mary Durojaye had 16 points for BA, with Roz Mason adding 13.

Loughborough Riders hosted Sevenoaks where a convincing defensive effort from the home team kept Sevenoaks to 20 in the first half. Despite the Suns losing the second half by only one point, drawing the third quarter 14 a piece, the Riders first half performance kept the game in their hands as they finished the game 59-47.

“It was good to register our first league win,” said Rider Head Coach Matt Harber. “But I’ll be honest in syaing that we have a long way to go if we’re going to be a competitor amongst the top tier of teams this year.

“We struggled to establish a rhythm, failing to link successful defences into any offence. Megan Lewis proved to be a handful that we found difficult to contain, and she kept Sevenoaks in the game.”

Maaja Bratka let the Riders with a monster 18 points and 17 rebounds, followed by 16 from Mackenzie Westcott and 11 from Gillian Baird. GB point guard Georgia Jones finished with 9 assists.

The aforementioned Megan Lewis had 19 points and 7 rebounds to lead Sevenoaks, with top young prospect Cheridene Green finishing with 10 points and 6 rebounds in just 16 minutes. Box score.

Week 5 Preview

Barking Abbey will be looking to bounce back from their two overtime losses this weekend, when they host the unbeaten Nottingham Wildcats. Sheffield Hatters will make the away trip to Sevenoaks where they wish to get back onto a winning streak after their close loss against UWIC Archers, who face Team Northumbria away. Manchester will make the trip to Loughborough looking for their second win of the season after defeats versus Northumbria and Nottingham.

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