A busy weekend saw the Nottingham Wildcats take the trip down to London to compete against the London Lions for a place in the WBBL Trophy final on Saturday and then resume championship duty when they travelled to Wales to take on the Cardiff Met Archers.
Lions hosted the team that they met in last year’s final, Nottingham Wildcats, and after a close start to the game they were absolutely dominant in the second half to win 82-39 as Shanice Beckford-Norton led their scoring with 19 points off the bench, hitting 3-4 (75%) from the three-point line.
After trailing in the first quarter, Lions snatched the lead when Holly Winterburn beat the buzzer with a sensational deep three-pointer, and that was a momentum-changer as they opened the second stanza on a 6-2 run and took a double-digit lead when Jo Leedham-Warner scored six points in a row midway through the period to make it 37-25.
Lions went on to dominate the second half with a fearsome defensive performance, holding their visitors to just ten points – four in the third quarter and six in the fourth – as they ran away with the game, not allowing Wildcats a field goal for over ten minutes at one stage, the lead going through 30 when Cassie Breen and Beckford-Norton scored consecutive triples early in the fourth.
Lions forced an astonishing 32 turnovers in the game, and converted those into 39 points, with five steals for Winterburn, while Beckford-Norton, Leedham-Warner and Kennedy Leonard had three each.
BBL Trophy, Semi-Final
London Lions 82-39 Nottingham Wildcats (20-18, 39-29, 55-33)
(Lions – Beckford-Norton 19, Leedham-Warner 17, Breen 12; Wildcats – Edmonds 13, Pannell 10, Gyles 4)
The end of the weekend off tipped off in Cardiff as Nottingham Wildcats looked to strengthen their playoff hopes against the bottom of the table Archers.
The two sides served up a thriller and it took a fourth-quarter comeback for Nottingham to secure the big away win, trailing by seven going into the final 10 minutes.
The Wildcats saved their best for last as they outscored the Archers 24-9 in the final quarter to move up to sixth in the Championship.
Praise Egharevba led the Wildcats with a double-double of 18 points and 15 rebounds, whilst Shannon Hatch posted 24 points for the Archers.
WBBL Championship
Cardiff Met Archers 74-82 Nottingham Wildcats (14-20, 40-40, 65-58)
(Archers – Hatch 24, Saiki 17, Jorgensen 10; Wildcats – Pannell 22, Egharevba 18, Whittington 9)
Report Source: WBBL