Wildcats U16's v Hertfordshire

posted by: Webmaster on 24-Jan-2012

Nottingham Wildcats travelled to Hertfordshire at the weekend, to play top of the table Warriors.  The Wildcats who had been heavily defeated by the Warriors on the opening day of the season were looking for a much improved performance.  The Cats have shown a steady improvement over the past several weeks and were confident they could give the home side a much closer contest.

In that opening day defeat the Wildcats had struggle to defend against players driving to the basket.  For this game the strategy was to try and limit the Warriors to outside shots by playing a sagging man to man defence.  Early in the game this worked really well and the Wildcats ended the first quarter up by 18pts to 17.  A three pointer by Sadie Russell on the first offence of the quarter stretched the Wildcats lead to 4pts.  However, on the Warriors next possession Russell committed her third foul and returned to the bench.  The game now took on a completely different complexion with the Wildcats only scoring a further 2pts in the quarter, whilst Warriors added 29.  

At the end of the quarter the Warriors now had a commanding 23pt lead which they steadily added to as the game progressed.  The Wildcats seem to have been completely drained of any confidence during that second period and their team defence and offence was now almost non existent.  It was disappointing, that after having had such a positive start to the game, they should finish in such disarray.  The discipline they had shown in that opening quarter needs to remain throughout the game, in order for the Wildcats to compete with the better teams in the league.    

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