Nottingham Wildcats (48) v MK Breakers (66)
MK Breakers Women headed north up the M1 last Sunday for their first away game of the season against Nottingham Wildcats at the University of Nottingham’s impressive David Ross Sports Village. After a well-fought contest, it was the Breakers who were victorious securing a 48-66 win.
The two teams traded baskets in the early exchanges with Nottingham’s Captain, Macy Cook having an excellent first quarter scoring seven of her team’s 11 points. However, the defensive strategy applied by MK proved increasingly effective and MK began to stifle the Wildcats offence. At the other end of the floor, six of MK’s players contributed to the team’s 18 first quarter points giving them a 7-point lead.
As the game progressed, there were too many occasions when the Breakers created good shooting opportunities but failed to get the ball through the hoop. Although, the defence held firm through the second period, Nottingham managed to add 14 points to their total. Despite all the good looks and well worked endline plays, Breakers could only beat that by one to take an 8-point lead into the mid-game break (25-33).
In the third quarter, Nottingham tried a different defensive tactic and switched to a 2-3 zone defence, but MK were prepared. Their well-executed zone offence consistently found gaps inside as a result of good ball and player movement. At the other end of the floor, MK limited Wildcats to just seven points and Breakers finished the period with a 50-32 lead.
The gap between the two teams grew at the start of the fourth quarter which gave Coach Round the opportunity to run the bench. Nottingham managed a mini-run towards the end of the game, but it was too little too late and the Breakers cruised to an 18-point victory.
Reflecting on the game, Coach Round felt that at times his team lacked flow and the shooting percentage was lower than he would have liked, but he was confident that improvements will be made as the team gets deeper into the season. On the upside, he believed that there were plenty of positives. In particular, there were strong performances from Vanessa Obanor and Lauren Dabbs who scored 20 and 12 points, the endline inbound plays was successful on several occasions, the zone offence proved effective, and there were some impressive team and individual defensive plays.
Next weekend, the team has two games as they face North Herts at home in Round 3 of the league on Saturday and D1 team Loughborough Riders in the Cup away on Sunday. Admission to the league game, which tip off at 13:15pm at Bletchley Leisure Centre is free.