As anyone that has played in sport will tell you, waiting around for a late game is boring and annoying.  You don’t want to do anything too physical but you also don’t want to wallow in nothingness and carry that lethargy through to the game.  So today was always going to be a challenge just to get us through to our 5.30pm start time.  While the Coaches scouted teams for our next 3 games, the girls played an exuberant game of Cheat, working hard on their poker faces for future use when they may need to convince refs that they are innocent of violations and fouls they definitely committed.

Three meals, a trip to the Movies and some serious redecorating of our bus finally got us to the stadium an hour before game time.  The girls were revved up – we’re aiming to win the Shield, the Sportsmanship Trophy and the Social Media award for the week so it’s a lot to focus on.  Norths Bears were last year’s Champions so we knew we would have our work cut out.

It was another fast and furious start with the Bears having some success with their press even though we knew they were going to do it!  Fortunately they coped badly with the inspector gadget arms on our own press and so we went to the quarter break trailing by 2.  The second quarter saw the Bears get out to a 6 point lead before Coach Clarke’s plethora of base line plays resulted in two handy three pointers that put us back to even.  We started to dominate in transition and steals but frustratingly failed to convert on the scoreboard and this resulted in us going to half time 3 points behind.

A mini training session utilising the Gaze drill at half time was an attempt by the Coaches to address our “finishing off” issues.  We started the half playing aggressive defence, creating turnovers by putting them under shot clock pressure and scored 11 points to their 1.  The Bears then re-grouped but we managed to take a 5 point lead into the final break.  In the last quarter the girls extended their lead with further aggression on the press and working hard to stop the Bears’ hard drives to the basket.  Despite our continued lack of reward at the offensive end due to not putting the easy shots in (do you spot the theme?) we managed to extend our lead to finish the game with a 12 point win.

We were delighted with our team defensive effort, creating two 24 second shot clock violations and a back court 8 second violation.  Once we start consistently putting our layups and keyway shots in, there will be no stopping us!

Our day finished with ice bath recoveries and a rather nasty incident with a huntsman spider that saw blood curdling screams echo out across the Terrigal coast line.  We are pleased to announce that the quarantine room is now vacant and we are looking forward to our double header tomorrow.

Article:  Kerry Clarke