18 Feb 2017: Riders 71-79 Suns

Catherine Carr leads Sevenoaks Suns up to fourth place in the WBBL Championship as they beat Leicester Riders.

WBBL Championship
Leicester Riders 71 (15,31,55) (Livermore 17, Winterburn 13, McGarrachan 11)
Sevenoaks Suns 79 (29,51,61) (Carr 26, Pedersen 19, Busch 14)

Sevenoaks Suns have cracked the top four of the WBBL Championship after beating the previously fourth-placed Leicester Riders 79-71 on the road on Saturday.

It is a fourth win in the last five league games for Sevenoaks, and a third consecutive win in Leicester over the last two years. Suns now take a share of fourth, but have the head-to-head with Riders as this margin exceeds that by they were beaten earlier in the season.

And Suns were in control from the outset, as Renee Busch and Catherine Carr hit early three-pointers, before a burst of 12 unanswered points, Busch hitting another triple and Carr adding four more, made the score 26-12. In this battle between two of the league’s three best defences, Riders had already conceded more than half of their full game average.

It only got better for the visitors before the half, as Busch and Carr hit further triples in another surge of 10 points to put the lead at 44-24. Suns – the second worst three-point shooters in the WBBL, usually 20% – had hit 80% by the break, with Busch (4) and Carr (3) on 7/7 between them.

Riders did recover, and made one big push as they dominated the third period, 24-10, when Erin McGarrachan initially hit five in a row in a 9-2 run, and that was followed by an 11-0 push as Alex Smith, Harriet Swindells and Holly Winterburn scored three-pointers. Riders got as close as 59-55.

But Carr and Anne Pedersen settled the Suns with the opening scores of the fourth, before Carr added another three-pointer in what became a 9-2 run over the break, and the lead was back out to 68-57, proving enough for Suns to keep their hosts at arm’s length.

Carr was the star performer, with an enormous haul of 26 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.