Eagles 56 - 11 Wokingham

Another Sunday, and another Berkshire league U13 netball game in the offing.  This week’s opposition Wokingham - could the girls improve on the 45 - 12 win from last time they played?

A coin toss saw Eagles win the centre pass, and immediately piled on the pressure, quickly going 5 up without reply. Even with a very slippery surface the girls worked well together with great linkage between Lottie and Sophie, Keira and Georgia and some great work from Izzy as centre, intercepts from Holly and shooting from Grace - the whistle went and in the girls went at the end of the 1st quarter, 14 - 2 up.

The start to Q2 saw first blood go to Wokingham - so was there fire in the Wokingham belly?  Sophie quickly replied to quench the fire. Some great disruptive play from Eagles and again drives and linkages between Izzy, Keira and Sophie and Lottie and Grace saw points rack up one after another. In our defensive third fantastic work from Holly and Georgia neutralise their attack to win the period 14 - 3 and go into half time with a score of 28 – 5.

Q3 saw some positional changes with Emily (playing up) as GS, helping out for the day.  Keira moved to C, Georgia to GK, Holly to GD and Grace to WD. Straight out of the blocks saw pressure on Wokingham with a number of held balls aiding and abetting the Eagles turnovers. An intercept from Holly saw the ball move to Keira to Sophie to Emilyand bang, one on the scoreline for Eagles.  Lottie was keeping their GD busy and Grace and Georgia were neutralising their attack. The whistle soon blew and in the girls went for their last coach discussion, winning the period 16 – 3 to go into the fourth quarter at 44 – 8.

Q4 saw a few changes in position, Sophie was given a rest and Izzy came back on as C as Keira moved to WA.  Lottie as GA drew first blood in a rather error strewn start of the period, but after some encouragement from the coach the simple errors started to disappear. Again, some nice interplay between Izzy, Keira, Lottie and Emily put pressure on the Wokingham defence and kept it on them all the way to the final whistle. The held balls, intercepts and turnovers kept coming as the girls turned the screw in attack and in defence. Once again, Holly, Georgia and Grace effectively neutralised any attack and were quick to move the ball out of the defensive D, through the channels and put pressure back on the Wokingham defence. Our girls pushed through the 50-point barrier with little reply.  Wokingham managed to grab a couple of points to take them into double points. A contact penalty was the only way the opposition scored and the whistle blew with the girls winning the period 12 - 3 to round off with a final score of 56 - 11: an improvement in attack and defence from the previous meeting (45-12).

Keira aka “elastagirl” was awarded player of the match by the Wokingham team, which would have been justified on her slides and stretches on the slippery court alone  - and who found out that “yes”, she could do the splits!