Taunton Tigers Women returned to winning ways, following their close, heart-breaking pre Christmas loss to joint leaders, Birmingham Bears, when they defeated Cardiff Celts for the second time this season and in the process reclaimed the joint top spot in National League Division 2.
This game, originally scheduled for early December, was postponed after a serious car accident to a group of Cardiff players and the loss of their Captain, Acreman, for the remainder of the season. With their home court at Wellsprings unavailable, Tigers returned to their former lair at Castle Sports Centre. Cardiff are a solid outfit, with lots of league experience, and are in the process of rebuilding their team after the loss of several key players to Bristol Storm earlier in the season. Cardiffs great win against Guildford the previous day had provided a great confidence boost for the trip to Tigers, who have lost their influential forward, Milly Watkins, to Rotterdam in the European League.
This game, originally scheduled for early December, was postponed after a serious car accident to a group of Cardiff players and the loss of their Captain, Acreman, for the remainder of the season. With their home court at Wellsprings unavailable, Tigers returned to their former lair at Castle Sports Centre. Cardiff are a solid outfit, with lots of league experience, and are in the process of rebuilding their team after the loss of several key players to Bristol Storm earlier in the season. Cardiffs great win against Guildford the previous day had provided a great confidence boost for the trip to Tigers, who have lost their influential forward, Milly Watkins, to Rotterdam in the European League.
The second quarter proved to be the most decisive of the game for Tigers as point guards Jenny Ridgway and Hanna Byrne took control of the game and scoring was increasingly spread around. With Hannah Watkins dominating the defensive boards, Laura Dyke and Emily Farthing grabbing those all-important scores from determined, offensive rebounds, Celts struggled to stay in contentions as Tigers closed out the half leading 49 – 35.
The third quarter proved very testing for the Tigers as Celts came back into the game and quickly closed the points gap. Celts have always had a great shooting side, and the ever dangerous Murcia had a great quarter for the Celts as she nailed 14 points, including 2 long range 3 pointers, to counter the decreasing looks Tigers were allowing her and her colleagues inside. Tigers' running game was proving a real problem for Celts and fouls on Hannah Maddocks enabled her to pick up 6 well-earned points from the line, with Tigers leading 68 – 53 at the end of the third quarter.
A tiring Celts side moved to a zone defence in the last quarter in an attempt to disrupt the Tigers' scoring options and, although initially a problem to Tigers, fine guard movement around the perimeter and some incisive passing from Tigers' inside players was justly rewarded as Laura Dyke and Emily Farthing increasingly found the space and time to stretch Tigers' lead further and allow them to end the game leading 88 – 69.
Team Manager, Jim Hartston was delighted with the result,
“This is a great re-start to our campaign after the disappointment of close game with Birmingham, and a great way to start off the New Year. The girls performed really well today, in what could have been a very difficult game for us. The Celts are never an easy team to play against as they have a number of scoring threats and are packed with experienced players. This was a welcome return to our all-round, fast-breaking attacking game, which was built around a great defensive display from all our players. They delivered at both ends of the court — a well deserved win which puts us back as joint league leaders.”