Recap
On Saturday 29th October, Newcastle Eagles U16 girls travelled to Sheffield to play in their second league game of the season.
Newcastle Eagles took the tip and drove straight to the basket coming up against some hard physical defence from the opposition. Sheffield, on offence, retrieved the majority of their rebounds and a time out was called to re-iterate the focus on boxing out from the previous week’s training sessions. Katherine Bird got the scoring underway for the Eagles with a fast drive to the basket with Grace Rae adding to the score at the line after being fouled. Sheffield repeatedly used hand offs and screens to find their way to the basket which the Eagles struggled to defend against resulting in a first quarter score of 27-8. Communication between the Eagles’ girls needed to improve!
The second quarter got underway with Coach Marina stressing the importance of a continued focus on spacing and movement rather than dribbling round the three-point line. Seraphine O’Neill made an end-to-end drive to the basket and was fouled as she took the shot. This was followed up by two 3s by O’Neill and a 3 from Lexie Walton. Sheffield continued to drive to the basket with the Eagles doing their best to defend against the strong attack. Grace Rae continued to defend against the tall opposition significantly reducing the number of offensive rebounds that Sheffield were able to make but also meaning her team-mates needed to step in to help to avoid her needing to do so. A closer quarter of 19-14 gave a half-time score of 46-22 leaving the Eagles with a lot to do in the second half.
The first points of the second half went to the Eagles with Grace Rae driving strongly to the basket but, despite again reducing the number of offensive rebounds that Sheffield were able to make, they continued to struggle. Ava Bensley continued to work hard under the basket and was finally rewarded with free throws when she was fouled on the shot. Lexie Walton made a fast break to score and Erica Elsom fought hard for the ball. Katherine Bird continued to drive hard scoring both free throws after she was fouled on the shot. However, in her bid to stop Sheffield from scoring, she was fouled out so she headed to the bench for the remainder of the game. Another difficult quarter for the Eagles saw a quarter score of 16-7 but support from the bench continued as the girls headed into the fourth.
As the final quarter got underway, the Eagles took advantage of a mis-matched defender on Seraphine O’Neill who was able to set some screens for her team mates allowing them to make the drive to the basket. This also gave her the opportunity to put up some shots with late defence providing her with free-throws. Cleo Wealleans-Watts bought the ball up strongly and distributed it well to her teammates. As the movement of the Eagles girls improved, so too did the opportunities for putting points on the board. Ellison Burke went on a run repeatedly driving to the basket coping with the strong opposition she came up against. Unfortunately, with four minutes to go, Burke was fouled out so Ava Bensley stepped in to replace her continuing to limit the number of shots that Sheffield were able to put up. With three minutes to go, Ava Bensley passed in to Grace Rae at the post who scored an unexpected alley-oop. Sophie Henderson limited the impact of the player she was marking and found some space in which to dribble to the basket. In the last 10 seconds, Lexie Walton put up a 3 leaving the Eagles with an improved quarter score of 19-18 and a final score of 81-47.
Captain, Grace Rae, said that the game had been tough but the team would learn from it and knew what they had to do to make it better. With no game next weekend, the Eagles U16 girls have the opportunity to put in further work at training in preparation for the visit from Leicester
