Recap

For the second week in a row, the Eagles were playing competition for playoff spots. This week it was second place Manchester Mystics II. The Eagles were looking to put their woes from last week behind them and put together a much better performance away from home. Before the start of the game, however, the Eagles suffered a blow with one of their top scorers this year being ruled out by illness.

The start of the game was incredibly fast paced, and the Mystics looked by far the stronger of the two teams. They were putting the Eagles under incredible pressure which was leading to difficult shots by the Eagles. After the first five minutes, the Eagles were down 11-1. The second five for the Eagles stopped the bleeding slightly with a good score but they too were being outmatched. After the first quarter, the Eagles had a massive 17-3 hole to get out of.

At the start of the second quarter, the Eagles looked more composed and they moved the ball well to close the gap to 7. However, this time, the second five for the Eagles were now struggling and they were unable to stop the Mystics as they went on a 12-0 run to close out the 33-10 up.

After a strong team talk at half time, the Eagles came out stronger and started the half well with a 9-2 run. At the end of the quarter, with two minutes to go, tiredness was a factor and the Mystics finished the quarter strong with a 6-0 run to lead 41-21 and the Eagles still down by 20 points.

The Eagles didn’t give up and worked incredibly hard to keep fighting in this game. The gap was too big however and the opposition too strong and well organised. With a minute to go the Eagles had only managed to get it to 15 points. In the last 30 seconds, two massively obvious travels went uncalled for the Mystics and they got two scores to close out the game 52-33.

It was a game of two halves for the Eagles against a strong Manchester team. They looked out of their depth in the first half and were in many ways bullied by their opposition. This left them with too much to do in the second half and even though they won that half 23-19, it was not enough to overturn the first half deficit.

After two tough losses in a row, the Eagles look to regroup at home against Mersey Mavericks next week.

Scorers: Yemisi MEFFUL – 10 points, Judy ELADAWY – 9 points, Esra KANDEMIR – 5 points