4 Feb 2017 (TRO): Wildcats 72-47 Pride

Siobhan Prior and Ashley Harris lead Nottingham Wildcats to a comfortable home win over Caledonia Pride.

WBBL Trophy, North Group
Nottingham Wildcats 72 (20,46,56) (Prior 19, Harris 16, Mendes 14)
Caledonia Pride 47 (12,19,35) (Oakes 16, Bastian 12, Lewis 6)

Nottingham Wildcats have set up a crunch WBBL Trophy clash with Manchester Mystics, after dominating Caledonia Pride 72-47 to capitalise on Mystics’ defeat on Saturday and take a share of second-place in the North Group.

Wildcats were led by the formidable pair of Siobhan Prior, with 19 points, and Ashley Harris who posted a monster double-double of 16 points and 20 rebounds.

After a tight opening, the hosts broke open a tied game with a late first quarter burst of eight unanswered points, making it 20-12 as Melisa Mendes scored five and Prior hit a three-pointer on the buzzer.

Lisa Greenaway and Mendes added further triples in the first minute of the second stanza to send the lead into double-figures, before Prior’s ‘and-one’ play pushed it out to 31-17.

And Wildcats went on to dominate before the half time break, winning the game as Harris scored seven in a run of 15 unanswered points, making the score 46-19 as the visitors didn’t register for more than six minutes.

There was no way back for the Pride, as Nottingham held them to under 50 points for the second time in a month, while bouncing back from a run of two defeats in three games.

Pride did edge the second half, initially with a run of 11 unanswered as Natalie Bastian and Tricia Oakes scored four each, and they got back to within 20 points at 54-35. They kept the game around that margin, until a 9-2 run to close it out was capped by Prior.

Wildcats travel to Mystics next weekend in a winner-takes-all clash that will see one of them qualify for the Trophy semi-finals, alongside Westfield Health Sheffield Hatters.