*lead image courtesy of WBBL Review

WBBL Cup

Durham Palatinates 84-65 Manchester Mystics (19-15, 26-20, 19-12, 20-18)
(Palatinates – Hendershot 22, Barbeito 20, Bautista 20; Mystics – Keltos 22, McMillan 16, Czernicki 10)

Caledonia Gladiators 72-68 Cardiff Met Archers (18-8, 11-13, 10-12, 19-23, 8-4)
Gladiators – Jones 18, McGarrachan 12, Adams 11; Archers – Hatch 19, Marchizotti 14, Saiki 14

Nottingham Wildcats Oaklands Wolves (29-12, 22-19, 21-20, 24-10)
Wildcats – Gyles 26, Shaw 24, Nicolas 15; Wolves – Gould 27, Oliver 22, Carrasco-Menendez 7

Despite having this focus in a one-and-done situation like the Cup, away teams often struggle to start games on the road. This wasn’t the case for the Manchester Mystics when they headed to Sports and Wellbeing Park to play Durham Palatinates, who were kicking off their season after a delay. 

Sam Keltos and Shaelynne Sanchez Czerniecki hit back-to-back threes for the visitors to take a 6-2 lead over the home team early. Whereas Durham relied on its bench, particularly Goretti Hurtado Barbeito, who added six points in the opening quarter. 

Going into the final few minutes of the opening frame, it was tied on 15 apiece, but Barbeito hit her second three and Jess Wayne attacked the rim only to be hit by Manchester’s Josephine Vourliotis, who picked up her second foul, and sent Wayne to the line where she hit one of two to put the home team up by four.

Barbeito continued pouring it on during the second quarter, but it was teammate Elle Hendershot who picked up her end of the bargain. The guard had been all over the floor, grabbing rebounds, dishing out assists and picking off steals – Hendershot didn’t take a minute off in the first half and finished the opening 20 minutes with 15 points, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals and a 10-point lead for her team.

The third Palatinate that had kept the scoreboard ticking over during the second quarter was Inma Bautista. After playing for the Gloucester City Queens last season, and with the Worcester Wolves WNBL teams before that, the Spanish guard was looking forward to getting back on the court, and Durham were glad to have her. 

By the end of the third, Bautista, Hendershot and Barbeito were firing on all cylinders and the Palatinates smothering defence held the Mystics to just 12 points in the quarter, and build a defiicit of 17 points. 

Manchester battled hard in the fourth behind a constant Keltos to get back into the contest, but great leadership by Hendershot for Durham kept the opponents at bay for a big win. 

The travelling Cardiff Met Archers were the slow starting side during the clash against the Caledonia Gladiators in Lagoon Leisure Centre.

The Welsh player who started out with on fire was Mara Marchizotti, who opened up the Archers scoring with some on-target layups. Once the Gladiators figured out how to contain her, the Scots went on a 14-0 run to close the opening frame.

After re-grouping, one of last week’s All-Star 5 Lauren Saiki joined the Archers’ scoresheet for a couple of aggressive layups. It took Erin Jones and Tea Adams to get the Gladiators offence flowing again, but it was Caledonia’s defence that began failing, as Issy Bunyan, a rising Welsh force, opened her scoring with a deep three to cut the deficit to 10. Captain Shannon Hatch and Machizotta kept the pressure on and Cardiff entered the second half down just six points.

A worrying moment early in the third quarter saw Chantelle Handy turn her ankle, but she managed to shake off the tweak and get back into the action. It happened against a backdrop of rising tensions as neither team managed to score in the opening three minutes, until Hatch broke through the Caledonian defence for a layup.

Both sides kept the pressure up and the third ended with a four point gap in favour of the home team. The momentum had been with Cardiff, and Caledonia were pleased for a break going into the fourth, in the hope that it might slow their opponents down.

That wouldn’t be the case. A beautiful play saw two Archers screen Hatch to cut through the middle of the lane from the top of the key to receive a perfectly timed pass from Lara Habling for an easy layup that gave Cardiff the lead.

A full-court press from the visitors kept the home team on their heels, but Robyn Lewis showed a hardy Scottish nerve twice to attack the basket and get acorabatic layups to fall.

A stalemate fell over both teams in the ensuing three minutes where not much fell for either side, but it was Lewis who kept chipping away.

Caledonia captain Erin McGarrachan got a huge block on Hatch with two and half minutes remaining to launch a transition basket for the double-double machine Erin Jones, who got fouled while scoring the layup to take a two-point lead.

Off a Cardiff turnover, Radka Stasova got loose on the break but bricked a layup under pressure, only for a trailing Jones to put it back up to take the lead, which was matched again by Habling on the other end.

Lewis missed a massive three for Caledonia, and Hatch made them pay with a huge three to put Cardiff up 64-61 with 17 seconds to go.

The Gladiators loaded up the court with three-point shooters and Jones hit a huge three off the pick-and-pop, thanks to a pass from Lewis to tie the game up with eight seconds to go. And while Cardiff’s Abi Yunker got an opening floater driving down the lane at the buzzer, it rimmed out and went to overtime.

In the extra frame, Hatch broke the seal on an out-of-bounds play that saw her break open for a baseline jumpshot. But that seemingly opened the floodgates as both sides went back and forth until the Gladiators regained the lead 70-68 with two minutes to go.

Bunyan got to the line for Cardiff to draw level, but perhaps the pressure got to the 17-year-old prospect, as she bricked both. The nerves got the best of both sides as they struggled to score, but it was the Olympian Handy who scored the final two points of the game and put her Gladiators up by four for the win.

True to form, the Nottingham Wildcats opened up their home WBBL Cup game against the Oakland Wolves with as Mari Stewart and Kennedy Nicolas got out of the gates early to open up a lead.

The player movement and passing showed the home side to be a much more organised team than the visitors in black, as Oakland relied on a lot of one-pass pull-up shots without much movement. Meanwhile, the Wildcats saw the ball flow through several hands with cuts and motion to rival the Golden State Warriors at times while building a 27-7 lead with less than two minutes to go in the quarter.

The physicality of Jahnae Gyles proved difficult for the Wolves to handle. She was muscling defenders out of the way while being aggressive driving to the hoop time after time.

Grace Oliver did everything she could for the Wolves, as the big looked shattered after grabbing five rebounds and adding six points in the first quarter, but her team was still down 19-12 to close the opening 10 minutes.

Oliver finished with 22 points, and got support from Wolves captain Cassidy Gould who had 27, but it was clear that Oakland had no depth compared to Nottingham.

They never closed the gap to less than around 20 points, which made the game a frustrating experience for the visiting team, but it goes to show the importance of getting out to a good start in a competition like the WBBL Cup.

Perhaps more important, however, is home court advantage. The top three seeds based on last year’s Championship standings went straight through to the next round of the WBBL Cup, but the Nottingham Wildcats, Caledonia Pride and Durham Palatinates each showed how the home crowd, and the lack of travel, can impact your chances of winning.

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