WBBL Championship
Durham Palatinates 75-69 Newcastle Eagles (13-25, 15-11, 22-16, 15-17)
Palatinates – Ottewill-Soulsby 25, Hendershot 16, Wayne 11; Eagles – Fernandez Pardo 15, Clasen 11, Nolan 11
B Braun Sheffield Hatters 76-58 Nottingham Wildcats (30-12, 8-19, 19-12, 19-15)
Hatters – Murphy 16, Naylor 12, Wroe 11; Wildcats – Ashton 18, Nicholas 13, Cook 12
Essex Rebels 88-53 Manchester Met Mystics (20-12, 25-18, 25-13, 18-10)
Rebels – Kohlhaas 29, Swart 14, Paxton 11; Mystics – Keltos 17, Niehues 10, Sanchez Czerniecki 9
Sevenoaks Suns 61-66 Caledonia Gladiators (16-15, 18-12, 8-22, 19-17)
Suns – Bradshaw 15, Hodges 14, Busch 11; Gladiators – Handy 22, McGarrachan 12, Adams 12
London Lions 76-52 Leicester Riders
Lions – Winterburn 20, Herbert Harrigan 17, Murray/Battle/Vorpahl 8; Riders – Arlen 21, Brown 13, Robb 8
A 66-61 win for the Caledonia Gladiators over the Sevenoaks Suns at Surrey Sports Park kept the WBBL Championship in contention heading into the last week of the season.
The veteran presence of Chantelle Handy led the way with 22 points. But the Gladiators will need her again next week when the London Lions visit them at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow to perhaps make a bid for the silverware.
London kept the pressure on Caledonia thanks to a win over the Leicester Riders in the Copper Box.
The 76-52 win was more hotly contested than the final scoreline suggests, as the Lions needed 20 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists and three steals from Holly Winterburn, and they wore down the visitors in the fourth quarter.
Elsewhere, Durham Palatinates overcame a difficult challenge from the Newcastle Eagles to take a 75-69 victory at the Sports and Wellbeing Park.
The home team was led by Harriet Ottewell-Soulsby, who didn’t sit down for 40 minutes and went off for 25 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists.
Big wins for the B Braun Sheffield Hatters and the Essex Rebels were thanks to Karly Murphy’s 16 points and Andrea Kohlhaas’ massive 29, respectively.
When Marina Fernandez Pardo is on as a three-point shooter, the Newcastle Eagles are tough to stop.
She got hot from distance in the first few minutes to tip off Sunday’s slate of WBBL Championship games, hitting three of four, which gave the visitors a 15-9 start.
This opened up the paint for the Eagles to slash and drive, which gave Abby Lowe the chance to cut back door on multiple plays. She caught passes on the move and squeezed up a couple of acrobatic layups past her former team.
For the home side, Helen Ottewill-Soulsby scored first and kept Durham Palatinates going throughout the first quarter.
The pace of Newcastle, however, was tough to match early, and their lead grew to 25-13 by the end of the first 10 minutes of play.
Ottewill-Soulsby got her team going again in the second quarter, while Elle Hendershot scored and Jess Wayne got on the stat sheet to cut Durham’s deficit to six.
The Palatinates shifted to pressuring the visitors three-quarters of the way up the court, which slowed the Eagles down initially.
Courtney Clasen came to half court for Newcastle to act as a relief for the guards under pressure.
Her team was then able to get up the court on multiple possessions to spring open Zoe Willis for multiple baskets, including a three that pushed the lead to 34-23 with two minutes to go in the half.
Durham’s pressure defence managed to pick off a few passes at half court, and the Palatinates half court offence was patient and prepared. Ottewill-Soulsby personified this by hitting a calm, open three off good movement.
Just before the buzzer, Wayne stole the ball from Fernandez Pardo and ran the length of the court to hit a tough layup.
This meant the Eagles had just a single-digit lead going into the half, 36-28.
To begin the third quarter, an early entry pass to Ottewill-Soulsby saw Katie Bennett burst past her defender to receive the one-two play for an open layup that cut the Palatinates gap to four.
Wayne hit a three for Durham, and the next time down, Ottewill-Soulsby crashed the offensive glass and got the ball to Hendershot. She found Bennett for another layup and the first lead of the game, 39-38.
Antoinette Lewis and Katie Nolan worked together for the Eagles on the low block and the offensive glass to wrestle back to a slim lead.
Rachael Bland extended this for Newcastle with a big three but Durham’s Ottewill-Soulsby fought back to close the third quarter, and it finished 50-52 in the Eagles’ favour.
While Ottewill-Soulsby carried the scoring load for much of the game, in the fourth frame she focused on finding teammates.
Inma Bautista hit a three to tie it up, and another to create a gap a few possessions later – both off Ottewill-Soulsby feeds.
The star scorer found Wayne with two minutes to go, who scored a layup to keep Durham up six. Each team traded free throws to close the game, and the Palatinates kept their six-point gap for the win.
Karly Murphy wasted no time in putting her stamp on the contest for the B Braun Sheffield Hatters, by scoring 7 points in the first five minutes against the Nottingham Wildcats.
Charli Wroe and Kian Omer-Jones checked in a few minutes later, with the three-point line as a target.
They scored back-to-back from long distance, and a pair of fast break buckets from Abbey Whitehouse and Murphy made it 25-8.
The lead kept building and the home team finished the first quarter 30-12.
Whatever Nottingham coach Kenrick Liburd said to the Wildcats in the break did the job to inspire his team.
They went on a seven-point run, kickstarted by Jocie Leavold. She opened the quarter with a layup and got to the rack again, only to be fouled, where she hit one of two free throws.
Her teammates followed suit and pushed the ball for a series of quick layups that was punctuated with a three from Kennedy Nicholas, which brought her team within six.
Naomi Campbell scored for Sheffield to interrupt Nottingham’s run, but Nicholas and Brahe Ashton started a new one.
This was cut short by Hannah Shaw. The GB Basketball veteran got the ball in the mid-post for a turnaround jumper, and caused havoc for the defensive rebounders the next time down.
She got the ball and put it back up, only to be fouled in the act of shooting. She hit both free throws to create a seven-point gap for the Hatters headed into the half.
Lena Niang came alive in the third for the Hatters. Scoring all of her game’s seven points within four minutes, Sheffield doubled their lead to 18.
From here, Sheffield kept their foot on the gas. Nottingham’s Ciara Belsham got to the line and hit four straight free throws to close the quarter, but the Hatters didn’t let the Wildcats get closer than 14 points for the rest of the game.
While the Essex Rebels got out to an early 15-4 lead at the Essex Sport Arena over Manchester Met Mystics, the visitors’ Leah McDerment took the game into her hands on back-to-back buckets from a mid-post position.
Unfortunately, McDerment went down pushing the ball on an ensuing possession and had to be helped off the court.
Without the scorer, Shaelynne Sanchez Czerniecki went from assisting her teammates to looking for her own shot. She hit a pull-up jumper in the middle of the lane to maintain momentum.
The Rebels retained their early advantage and had a 20-12 lead after 10 minutes.
A foul on Essex’s Ashleigh Munns while shooting from distance gave her three easy points at the free throw line.
But the Mystics responded with a quick layup from Sam Keltos – and Claire Abbott joined her.
Abbott scored again, this time a layup to bring her team within six, which is when Andrea Kohlhaas said ‘no more’.
The Rebels forward put her head down for a looping hook shot layup for her 10th and 11th point.
Each time Manchester tried to close the gap, Kohlhaas broke their stride. With the Essex lead reduced to four, she hit a big three to push it to seven and the Rebels took a 45-30 lead over the Mystics into the half.
McDerment returned for the Mystics in the third quarter, but Kohlhaas kept pacing the Rebels.
Daniela Turner helped Essex build the lead further. She ran off eight straight points for the home team and the lead kept growing.
Even in the fourth quarter, Essex outscored the visitors to finish with an 88-53 win.
Caledonia Gladiators couldn’t secure the WBBL Championship themselves this weekend, but they were able to stop it from being won.
They travelled a long way to Surrey Sports Park to face the Sevenoaks Suns, who are still in the hunt for second-place in the table, so it was never going to be an easy game.
Caledonia came in with 15 wins, while Sevenoaks had 14, and the first half highlighted how little there was between the sides.
The Suns relied on Araion Bradshaw to shoulder the scoring load, whereas the Gladiators used a more balanced attack in the first quarter.
In the second, Renee Busch stepped up for Sevenoaks in a timely manner. After Caledonia’s Chantelle Handy hit a three to go ahead by two, Busch responded with one of her own.
She followed up with a driving attack to get fouled and score from the free throw line.
This instigated a run that was finished off by a Brittany Hodges layup to go up by nine, which was reduced to seven before the end of the first half, 34-27.
The team from Scotland needed to be brave at heart in the second half if they wanted to stop a championship celebration in London – and there’s few players in the league more fearless than Tea Adams.
She hit a turnaround jumper to start the second half, then attacked the lane at speed to get to the rack, before making another shot, which cut Caledonia’s deficit to one point.
The Gladiators employed a full-court press to stop the Suns from rising.
The Sevenoaks being held at bay, Caledonia’s Abbie Wolf used some crafty off-ball movement to receive the ball and turnaround with a jumper.
The Gladiators’ Patricia Elias found her way to the bucket twice for her first four points of the game and the visitors capped off a 22-8 quarter with a Handy three.
Caledonia captain Erin McGarrachan led from the front by scoring her team’s first six points of the fourth.
GB Basketball’s Janice Monakana found her way to the free throw line for Sevenoaks to bring her team back to within two points.
Handy responded for the Scots with a big three that put her team up by five.
And while Busch and Monaka kept the Suns chasing, the huge third quarter from the Gladiators was too big to overcome.
Caledonia picked up their second road win in two days 66-61, which means the WBBL Championship will continue into another week.
As with many contests between the London Lions and Leicester Riders this season, it took a few minutes for the teams to figure out each other’s strong defensive schemes.
The Lions’ prowling defenders forced the Riders into several late shot attempts and 24-second violations, including a disheartening block by Shanice Beckford-Norton block as the buzzer went on a prayer by Leicester.
Hannah Robb, however, has been the heart of Leicester’s all season. Her long distance shot closed the gap to six before London’s Mikiah Herbert Harrigan drove hard into two defenders to get a layup before the end of the first 10 minutes.
Ashley Arlen’s success has been key for the Riders this season. She got a layup to go, then blocked Herbert Harrigan on the other end, before walking into a three on offence to make it 19-14 early in the second quarter.
London stayed relentless, but Leicester’s heads were held high as the Arlen-Herbert Harrigan highlights continued.
Arlen bobbled the ball but recovered to shoot from distance. Kiki got a mid-range shot to go, but Arlen responded with a hard drive down the lane for a layup, plus a foul, which tied the game up at 25.
After a timeout, a pair of Lions surprised McKenzie Johnston with a trap at half court but she recovered the ball. The Riders burst up the court and Arlen walked into an open three, which gave Leicester the first lead of the game.
London’s Chantel Charles subbed in and made her presence felt. After leaking out for a fast-break layup, she hit a buzzer-beating three in the corner to put the Lions back up by four going into the half.
London upped the defensive intensity out of the locker room, and Holly Winterburn increased her focus on offence. She reeled off eight straight for her team, including a big three to go up by seven.
Kirsty Brown wasn’t backing down. She scored a couple of driving layups to keep Leicester within reach.
Brown remained the hot hand for the visitors with some mid-range jumpers, while Arlen’s good hands swiped the ball out of the air when London’s Taylor Murray attempted a driving layup.
Herbert Harrigan fouled Arlen on a block attempt, and the Lions’ big hit two free throws, which cut the gap to four.
London’s Azania Stewart set a screen that caught Robb by surprise, which shook the Riders guard, who crumpled and went to the bench.
Robb’s hustle was missed to start the fourth quarter, as Leslie Vorphahl found Herbert Harrigan leaking out to get a layup to push her team up by 11.
Leicester’s McKenzie Johnston took her defender down into the paint and shot a fadeaway over the top.
She then found Arlen, who turned into the lane and drew a foul from Herbert Harrigan just as the layup fell. A good free throw closed the gap to six.
The Lions needed a big moment player to step up, and that was Winterburn.
She got a layup to go, then made a huge three to push London back up by 11. And then found Katsiaryna Snytsina for a three.
A strong defensive stance for nearly six minutes by London retained the double-digit gap and secured a victory.
Fans will have hoped for a WBBL Championship trophy presentation, but the Lions will have to travel to Scotland on Wednesday to potentially win it.