Bath fall down at Lightning

Loughborough Lightning 41 - 27 Team Bath

26th November 2007 Sir David Wallace Sports Hall

Yesterday saw Loughborough Lightning taking on traditional rivals Team Bath in the Sir David Wallace Sports Hall. The normally dominant Team Bath were languishing in sixth place in NSL going in to the match and were desperate for a win. In order to try and stop the rot they called Jo Binns, England wing attack and centre, back in to their squad despite the fact that she had only been back in the UK for a week after the World Championships in New Zealand. Binns slotted back in to a Team Bath squad studded with other England U-21s but they couldn’t stand up to a focused Lightning performance.

The early parts of the game were error strewn with both sides defending strongly and turning over opposition all over the court. As the first quarter progressed Lightning’s defensive pairing of Hannah Reid and Verona Tomlin stepped up the pressure and the Team Bath attack started to struggle. With Olivia Murphy starting to exert some control over a frenetic mid-court area Lightning began to edge the game and took a 9-6 lead at the end of the period.

The second quarter saw Heather Clarke take the court at GA for Lightning and Natasha Hampshire come on at WA to try and create more fluency for Lightning moving forwards. Team Bath started the quarter strongly but the Lightning started to find a better rhythm and began to extend their lead. Astle was the key to Lightning’s attack consistently finding space in the attacking circle and slotting chances whenever they presented themselves. Murphy was gradually winning her battle with Binns at centre and became increasingly influential in both attack and defence as the quarter wore on. Half time saw Lightning with a 9 goal lead 21-12.

In the third quarter Bath rang the changes bringing on two players from the bench and changing Binns from C to WA and then back again during the quarter. At this point Lightning’s concentration slipped and their error count began to rise again. A few chances went begging at the attack end and Bath began to eat in to the lead eventually taking the quarter 10-9.

The final quarter saw Lightning emerge with fresh focus and take the game away from Bath. Reid and Tomlin stepped up their game again in the defensive circle and the Bath attack couldn’t find a way through. As Bath players began to tire Lightning started to open up a substantial lead. The quarter ended 11-5 in Lightning’s favour and Lightning had won comfortably 41-27.

It wasn’t a pretty game and Lightning will feel that they could, and should, have won by a bigger margin. Winning by 14 goals was good but doing it whilst shooting at only 57% accuracy means there is a lot of room for improvement. Lightning will be working hard to develop as the season progresses but sitting second in the league as Christmas approaches is right where they want to be.