WBBL Championship
London Lions 91-55 Essex Rebels (30-8, 46-25, 73-40)
(Lions – Stewart 16, Leedham-Warner 15, Breen 13; Rebels – Waithe 24, Bieg Salazar 10, Costa 10)

WBBL Championship
Leicester Riders 67-79 Sevenoaks Suns (16-25, 36-43, 50-58)
(Riders – Lappenkuper 26, Lewis 14, Januszewska 14; Monakana 21, Carr 20, Koppl 14)

London Lions were officially crowned WBBL Championship winners on Friday after taking a 36-point victory over Essex Rebels, continuing their unbeaten league record and securing their first ever league title.

Having already picked up victories over Sheffield and Manchester earlier in the week, London came into Friday’s contest knowing all they needed was to win their game, or have Sevenoaks Suns lose to Leicester, in order to claim the league title.

Like they have done so many times this season, London exploded onto the court to start the game, running out ahead of the visitors 13-0, 10 of which came from Azania Stewart, who picked up a double-double of 16 points and 14 rebounds, and London managed to keep Essex off the scoreboard until almost six minutes into the game.

London extended their lead to 30 by the end of the first period, but the Rebels, who lately have been producing some impressive performances, began fighting back, and found themselves outscoring the home side by 17 points to 16, potentially signalling an impending comeback from the visitors in the second half.

But with a potential treble on the line, the Lions came out into the second half even more fired up then they were originally, extending their lead to 24 within the opening minute.

Lions managed to out run the visitors and put up another 12-0 run within the final three minutes of the third period to extend their lead to as much as 35, a lead which Essex just couldn’t cut enough in the final period and would see London run the clock down to the final buzzer to pick up their third league title of the season.

Speaking post-game, London Lions Head Coach Mark Clark, reflected on his team’s success, saying:

“How do you feeling when you win a Championship; that’s the thing that tells you how good you are for the whole season. That’s when you go to work everyday and at the end of the day, you’ve done it for the whole year, which is a great feeling, and it’s down to a lot of great people.

“We wanted to try and win it in the way we’ve played the whole year, with our tempo, smile on your face, trying to entertain, trying to get people the right ball at the right time, and in the first half in particular we had fun.

“We’ve got one more game to go unbeaten and then we’ve got another trophy to win, that’s where we’re going.”

Azania Stewart also spoke on the team’s goal of winning the league title, adding:

“We set that goal really early. We knew we had a really good team, but we also set ourselves a goal playing our style and our way, and not dropping and I feel like we’ve done that very, very well, especially coming down to the end tier. Just establishing our style, the ‘London Lions style’, so I’m really happy and proud of our team.

“It was not a goal for us to go undefeated, it was just ‘get all the silverware we could’ so we’re on number three and we’ve got one more to go. That was my goal, from even when we played in the Cup and the Trophy.”

Lions point-guard Kennedy Leonard, also added:

“Any time you win a Championship, it’s an exciting feeling, but like Mark said, we have one more game on Sunday, so we’re going to have a quick turnaround and get ready for that.

“It took extraordinary effort obviously, every day in practice we’re going against each other so hard, so to come to these games and win, and win the way we do means a lot to us just considering how hard we work to get here.”

Whilst they just missed out on the WBBL Championship, Sevenoaks Suns still managed to pick up an away victory over Leicester Riders.

Backed by a near double-doubles from both Julia Koppl, 14 points and eight rebounds, and captain Cat Carr, 20 points and nine assists, the Suns managed to keep just ahead of the hosts, taking a single digit lead throughout the first three periods of the game, before managing to extend it to as much as 17 in the final period to give themselves a comfortable lead, enough to hold onto the eventual full-time buzzer.