WBBL: Caledonia Pride 49, Nottingham Wildcats 63
SPIRITED Caledonia Pride opened 2017 by having a real go at league leaders Nottingham Wildcats and the Scots, in their inaugural season, proved that they can compete with the best.
Admittedly, it took Scotland’s first women’s professional basketball team time to grow into the game before a packed house at Oriam but when they did the noisy crowd got behind them and sparked a second-half charge which was warmly appreciated.
The scoreline was 41-25 in favour of the girls from the Midlands at the end of the first half but the Scots took the game to Wildcats in the third quarter and drew it 12-12 to be 53-37 behind.
Pride kept up the pressure in the third and scored 12 points against ten from Nottingham in the final session with the scoreline cut to ten points at 47-57 with just over five minutes remaining.
A turnover, something that is the squad’s Achilles heel, proved costly, snapping momentum, but the crowd loved the effort shown and the squad are growing in confidence and pride with every game.
Top scorer for the Scots was Hannah Peacock with 15 points and Tricia Oakes was only one point behind with 14 against a highly-physical side who had blown Pride away in their first meeting earlier this season.
No more. Pride are on the up and proved it against competent opposition whose top scorer was Ashley Harris with 19 points.
Siobhan Prior was next best with 13 and Hannah Shaw, the tallest player on view, netted 12.
Pride’s Dutch coach Bart Sengers praised his squad and he strongly believes that his charges are moving in the right direction.
They have two weeks intensive training ahead of them until Manchester Mystics visit Oriam on Saturday, January 22 (1pm), time for the promotional team to whip up even more enthusiasm for the team and the coach to work on cutting down on turnovers.
Nottingham scored 31 points that way against Pride’s 13, a point highlighted by Sengers.
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