The game started at 2pm with Archers winning the tip off, the ball was quickly stolen by Maddie Martin. The first points of the game were scored by our Captain Robyn Love. The team worked hard with Love, Clare Griffiths and Anna Blease scoring points to keep Lightning in the lead.
End of Quarter 1 score: Archers 8 – 14 Lightning
Archers started the second quarter by scoring the first basket – an early time out was called, and the momentum was broken. Shortly after the time out, Holly Lounds won a free throw and made the first one keeping lightning 5 points ahead. Archers were chasing Lightning and reduced Lightning’s lead to only 3 points. Siobhan Fitzpatrick was not deterred, she kept calm and pushed on and scored a basket. With Lightning’s next play Love was not messing around and put up a 3-pointer. By the end of the quarter lightning had a 9 point lead, but the effort the team had put in it could have been much more!
End of quarter 2 score: Archers 21 – 30 Lightning
Archers again start the quarter strong by scoring the first basket, but the team were determined to maintain their lead. The third quarter proved a continual battle with Archers on Lightnings tail the whole way. Teamwork was essential in this quarter. Lucy Robinson and Love were working together and scored a great team basket. Jess Whyte made one of her classic steels and passed to Blease to score another great team basket.
End of Quarter 3 score: Archers 39 – 46 Lightning
Lightning went into the final quarter with a 7-point lead, this is not a comfortable position and fuelled the fire in the team. Archers were not giving up – this really pushed the team and put them under pressure. After only scoring 2 baskets in the first 4 minutes the pressure was on. A time out was called, and this changed the momentum of the quarter. Maddie Martin and Robyn Love worked to gather in quick succession to score 2 baskets in 30 seconds and then the baskets kept coming. Fitzpatrick making valuable contributions towards the end of the game making 2 baskets. Martin ended the game with an amazing, unbalanced shot and secured the final 2 points for the team.
Final score: Archers 48 – 68 Lightning
Coach Bates said: “We’ve learnt that we need to be ruthless with our intensity, we can’t back off in any game or go into games lightly, we have a big target on our back and teams will always perform well against us. I think we also learnt that there is great strength in this team as a whole to see the game out together.”
Lightning's next game is away against East London Phoenix, at their home court, on the 25th of February with a 2pm tip off. For more information and to purchase home tickets, visit our webpage here.