WBBL Championship
Caledonia Pride 61-91 Leicester Riders (16-32, 30-57, 42-76)
(Pride – Storie 17, Ranger 14, Velazquez 9; Riders – Hinriksdottir 19, Lappenkuper 12, Winterburn 12)
WBBL Championship
Nottingham Wildcats 98-67 Essex Rebels (28-16, 63-32, 82-47)
(Wildcats – Shumpert 20, Joyner 16, Prior 12; Rebels – Costa 14, Kohlhaas 11, Munns 11)
Saturday afternoon saw big WBBL Championship wins for the two East Midlands sides who clash in next week’s WBBL Cup Final, Leicester Riders and Nottingham Wildcats.
Leicester overcame Caledonia Pride – who were playing their first game for over 300 days – by 91-61 north of the border to remain unbeaten in all competitions, behind 39 bench points as all nine players scored at least five points, with five of those in double-figures.
After tight opening exchanges, Leicester blew the game open midway through the first period as they hit an 18-4 surge over six minutes, Sara Hinriksdottir hitting seven of those points off the bench as Riders led 32-16 after ten minutes.
They never looked back from there, pouring in another 25 second stanza points to settle the game before the half as Hinriksdottir led all scorers with 19 points and Kate Oliver also came from the bench to score eight and grab 10 rebounds in just 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, Nottingham were equally dominant in the first half of their game as they beat Essex Rebels 98-67, bouncing back from defeat to Leicester in their last outing to go 2-1 in the league.
Wildcats scored a massive 63 of those points in the first half and they had a double-digit lead almost straight away after opening the game 18-5 in little over five minutes, including three-pointers from Siobhan Prior and Chelsey Shumpert.
That was followed by a huge 35 point second period in which they added another six triples – two each for Shumpert and Rebecca Dwomoh – as the lead reached an unassailable 63-32 by half time before ending at the second highest points total of the season, only behind the 101 they scored against Manchester Met Mystics in November.
Wildcats shot 13-30 (43%) from three-point range, with Shumpert hitting five of those on her way to a game high 20 points, adding nine assists; while Jasmine Joyner had a double-double of 16 points and 11 rebounds.
Today’s victorious teams will meet in the WBBL Cup Final on Sunday 24th January at the University of Worcester Arena, live on Sky Sports.