Recap
On Sunday 13th November, Newcastle Eagles U16 girls played their first home game of the season against Leicester Riders.
Newcastle Eagles got off to a strong start with the first points of the game. However, Riders immediately put in place some intense defence causing the Eagles some difficulties in making it to the basket. Eagles suffered a very high number of turnovers and found it hard to run the plays they’d spent time practising resulting in a whole team substitution but despite this, the game remained a challenge. Newcastle Eagles continued to work hard in their efforts at both ends of the court resulting in a fair amount of offensive rebounds for the home team but the consistent shooting at the opposite end of the court left the Eagles with a first quarter score of 13-26.
The second quarter got off to a good start with a strong drive to the basket by Grace Rae but unfortunately for the home team they continued to struggle to make their way to the basket and to get their shots to drop. There were shouts of ‘box out’ from both benches but a high success rate at the basket for Riders reduced the opportunities for Eagles to get the defensive rebounds. Grace Rae scored from the 3-point line but despite their efforts, the Eagles suffered a quarter score of 7-21 resulting in a half time score of 47-20.
The strong half time talk from Coach Marina focused on closing-out, boxing-out and finishing which meant that the Eagles girls came out fighting at the start of the third. Ellison Burke got the first shot followed by a good drive baseline by Cleo Wealleans-Watts which she was fouled on. Grace Rae repeated her alley-oop from the previous match putting another two on her considerable points total for the game. Support from the balcony and bench remained strong and the quarter ended 10-14.
Defence was somewhat lacking for the Eagles in the fourth quarter and the girls received a firm talking to from Coach Marina during a timeout. They continued to fight to find their way to the basket with Katherine Bird being fouled on more than one occasion, and Sophie Hawkins being fouled on a buzzer-beater three making her way to the line and scoring two of the five scored in the quarter. A disappointing fourth gave a scoreline of 5-25 and the game ended 35-86, leaving the Eagles and Coach Marina with a lot to do in preparation for their game against Manchester Mystics 1 next weekend.
Captain, Sophie Hawkins, said, “As a team, we didn’t play our best game and we’re all disappointed in the team performance we gave. However, we’ll learn from this, develop and come back stronger.”
