magnificent second half performance and in particular third quarter effort saw Newcastle Eagles bounce back to winning ways in Colchester at the University of Essex Sports Arena on Saturday night. After losing to league leaders Oaklands Wolves seven days ago this was the perfect response.

The Eagles though had to do this the hard way. Being down by as many as thirteen points in the first period and despite a fightback still down 42 – 33 at the half-time buzzer. It was a huge third period that swung the game back in Newcastle’s favour.

Head Coach Chloe Gaynor addressing her team at half-time just felt they were ready for the second half and turning the game around.

“Well truthfully I don’t think it was what I said, it was more about the team and their intent in the second half. We just spoke about resetting. Literally taking note of the first half but resetting and attacking the second.”

“I think to get a win like that where we had to really grind it out and had efforts across the board felt good.”

The Eagles were led by their irresistible 1 – 2 punch of Jada Guinn and Tierra Hodges but solid supporting efforts all round added to the efforts of their star double-act to help get them over the line.

Guinn was majestic finding ways to continually get to the basket and drive decisive daggers into the Rebels hearts. She ended up with an unbelievable 25 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 steals and continually provided Essex with questions they could not answer.

Hodges, captain for the night, turned in a gutsy effort to record her own double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds despite feeling far from 100% fit after illness had restricted her all week in practice whilst Shannon Hatch had 9 points and 8 rebounds in the most effective supporting role.

Gaynor is a coach that prefers to talk about her team as a whole but she did have some special words for her dynamic duo.

“Jada gets better as the season goes on and is doing a great job of adapting to what defences are throwing at her.”

“T did a great job considering that she hasn’t been feeling her best and had a true captain’s performance in taking care of the boards for us and hit some big free throws down the stretch too.”

Newcastle produced great basketball at both ends of the floor to take the third by 22 to 9 and lead by four going into the final period. Then Newcastle held off all Essex’s comeback attempts to control the last ten minutes and bring an excellent win back home to Tyneside.

“I’m really pleased with the response in the sense that this is a game we highlighted as a must win and we were able to get the job done.”

“The girls set some game goals during the week that leads into the bigger goal and it was pleasing to see the majority of those come to light which ultimately led us to the win.

There’s still a long way to go and we’re focusing one game at a time. Cardiff had a really good game against Oaklands today so our priority has to go towards focusing on preparing for that game best we can.”

The Cardiff Mets Archers game will be next Saturday night at home in The Vertu Motors Arena when Gaynor and her players will look to take another big step towards a top four Play-Off seeding.