Lightning finish their campaign on top.

Loughborough Lightning 58 v 40 Brunel Hurricanes

Having already made sure they couldn’t finish lower than second in NSL this season Lightning could afford to relax a little in Saturday’s game against Brunel Hurricanes. However Lightning were in no mood to relinquish their top spot and came out looking for an impressive performance.

The game started like Lightning’s previous 2 games as rather scrappy affair. Neither side could create any rhythm and whilst Lightning were certainly creating turnover ball they weren’t converting enough to build a lead. In attack Lightning looked fluent for the majority of the quarter but small unforced errors kept gifting the ball back to Hurricanes to keep them in the hunt. At times Lightning took their lead out to four goals but then allowed it to be pegged back and only ended the quarter 15-13 in front.

Alex Wood came off the Lightning bench for the second quarter to allow Harten to move to GA. Lightning started to create more space around the attacking circle edge but still too many balls were going astray with the final feed in to the circle. The Lightning defence were working hard but with the ball being spilled as often as it was Hurricanes kept coming back at Lightning. Vicklyn Joseph was having a great game for Hurricanes at GS and made the most of every opportunity that came her way. The quarter finished 11 all and Lightning kept their two goal lead at half-time.

With only a two goal gap it should have been anybody’s game but there was a real sense that Lightning had it in them to stretch the lead at any point. The waiting crowd finally saw Lightning put together a dominant display in the third quarter and move the game out of Hurricanes reach. James had replaced Wood in the Lightning attacking line and fluency returned to their all court play. Kara Luck was having an impressive game at GA against Australian Lara Welham. Welham, normally a prolific scorer for Hurricanes, could only manage 8 shots in the whole game and was shut down almost completely in the third quarter. Lightning put together a run of eight unanswered goals to lift themselves clear as their defence kept Hurricanes shot less for an entire five minutes. The quarter ended 16-5 to send Lightning in to the final quarter 42-29 ahead.

Hurricanes knew their chance had gone in the third quarter but kept pressing all the way to the final whistle. Joseph continued to impress with her accuracy at GS but Hurricanes simply couldn’t get enough ball to her to make a difference. Lightning were the stronger team in the final period but didn’t re-create their third quarter dominance. A few errors crept back in to the Lightning game but they knew the game was won and minds were probably turning to the play-off challenge in a week’s time.

The final score was 58-40 and Lightning had retained first place in NSL. The error count wont have pleased coach Rose Port ahead of the play-offs but the defensive effort, which restricted Hurricanes to just 43 attempts all game, was very solid. With the NSL final beckoning if Lightning can lift themselves mentally just a notch they will be a tough team to beat next week.