After ending April by lifting the WBBL Championship trophy for the third consecutive season, Sevenoaks Suns have picked up a monthly awards double for Head Coach Len Busch and Captain Cat Carr.

Busch earns the Molten WBBL Coach of the Month award for April after, amazingly, his team went 11-1 in the month while playing every two to three days in a hectic schedule that included three back-to-backs with games in consecutive days – they won all six of the contests that they played in those scenarios. Eight of those games, and seven of the wins, were also on the road as Suns travelled as far north as Caledonia Pride and as far west as Cardiff Met Archers.

Of particular note were decisive wins against fellow title-challengers London Lions and Leicester Riders, and a pair of victories over the other team that finished in the top four, Nottingham Wildcats.

Against Lions – who had previously led the league for much of the way – at the start of April, Sevenoaks trailed at half time on the road at their nearby rivals, only to emerge from Coach Busch’s half time team talk to hold their hosts to just 11 third quarter points including three scoreless spells of at least two minutes. Lavinia Da Silva scored six points in a 9-2 opening to the third period, and Suns never trailed thereafter in a 90-84 victory.

And they bettered that in a single quarter a few weeks later as they held Riders to just six points in the second stanza, and just 51 points in the game, as they beat the side who finished in second place 63-51. There was a spell in the second quarter where they held Riders scoreless for fully five minutes, pouring in 11 points of their own with Da Silva again scoring six of those. Leicester got back to within two shots in the fourth quarter but, unbelievably, Suns held their visitors scoreless for another five minutes to take the double-digit win.

It was fitting that April saw them gain victory in arguably their two biggest performances of the season courtesy of their defence, and Busch will be proud that his team finish the season as the second-best defence in the WBBL Championship as one of only two teams that averages fewer than 60 points conceded (58.9), which is close to 10 points better than the third-placed team in that regard.

That run of form and 12-point winning margin over Leicester gave Suns enough of a cushion that when they eventually did suffer their first league defeat of the campaign – against Riders, in their nineteenth game – they had done enough to secure the title regardless as they held Leicester’s margin to six points, thereby taking the head-to-head.

Sevenoaks also finished the regular season campaign as the best three-point shooting team in the league at an accuracy of 36.9% and, again no doubt pleasing for Coach Busch, the team that best looks after the ball by committing just 13.1 turnovers per outing.

For Busch, it is a second monthly award of the season after also being recognised in December, and he is certainly in the frame for a fourth straight Molten WBBL Coach of the Season award too.

Leading the charge from the front for her team throughout this title-winning spell was Cat Carr, as the club captain picks up the Molten WBBL Player of the Month award for April, gaining monthly recognition for the first time this season. Like her Head Coach, Carr is also likely to be in contention for another annual award after winning Molten WBBL Player of the Season in 2017-18 – no player has won that award twice.

Playing in all 12 games during the month, astonishingly Carr was close to averaging a triple-double with 19.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 7.0 assists in that time, also nabbing 1.3 steals per game. She shot 51% from the field, 34% from beyond the arc, and 79% at the free-throw line.

All of that meant that she finished the WBBL Championship campaign third overall in the league in scoring (18.8 points), second in assists (7.2) and second in defensive rebounds (7.7). In her seven years of campaigning in the WBBL, her rebound and assists numbers are career highs, and her scoring trails only the 2014-15 season when she averaged 20.1 points per game.

In the run-up to securing the title she made four straight appearances in the weekly All-Star 5, with the last of those coming after she posted a triple-double of 25 points on 10-13 (76%) shooting, along with 10 rebounds and 10 assists in victory over Cardiff Met Archers, including 13 first quarter points as Suns established a big early lead and never looked back. That was the last of a gruelling run of six wins in just 10 days in mid-April. As her averages suggest, that wasn’t Carr’s only triple-double of the month, as she also had 20 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in victory over Essex Rebels.

It felt as though she was close to that achievement in almost every game she played during April, and there were also five double-doubles including three games where she was just one assist or one rebound away from another triple-double.

Most notable of those was her huge performance in the crunch victory over Leicester, where Carr played all 40 minutes and put up 20 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. That included five assists and three rebounds in just five minutes during the crucial second quarter spell where Suns turned a deficit into a lead that they would hold, as well as an assist and a score consecutively when Leicester got within two shots in the fourth. Likewise, she also had five assists in that key third quarter run against Lions, again turning provider when her team needed her to do so.

The Suns are live on Sky Sports during May Madness, having already got safely through their Play-off quarter-final against Oaklands Wolves and with a semi-final against Newcastle Eagles to look forward to.