It was a bad weekend for the Northants Basketball Club as all three of its girls teams involved lost their play-off quarter-finals and missed out on a place in the Final Fours.
Junior Women’s Play Off Quarter Final
Bury Blue Devils 71 Northants Lightning 40
The Northants junior women travelled to Holy Cross College in Bury on Saturday to take on Blue Devils in the quarter-finals and ended up on the wrong end of a 66-41 scoreline.
The Bury team has been boosted by two players from London currently studying at Burnley College, and two players who have defected from Manchester.
From the start the Northants girls found the game just a little too physical for their liking and the intensity of the Bury defence made scoring very difficult.
Lightning managed just 20 points in the first two periods of play and found themselves trailing 40-20 at half time.
Things didn’t get any easier for the Northants girls in the third quarter which Blue Devils took 15-7 to extend their lead to 55-27 going into the final stanza.
Lightning kept battling to the end and only lost the last quarter 16-13, but Bury were good value for their 31 point win.
In a game where scoring was at a premium for the Northants girls, Steph Ogden with 14 points was the only Lightning player to score in double figures.
Cadette Women’s Play-off Quarter Finals
Manchester Mystics 66 Northants Lightning Too 41
After the game against Bury, the eight Cadette Women who had played in the Junior game stayed over in the north ready for their game against Manchester Mystics the next day.
The final score is no reflection on a battling performance by the Northants girls.
They lost the first three periods of play by single figures in a game dominated by defences, but at 43-28 they were still in with an outside chance of winning the game going into the last 10 minutes of play.
Early in the fourth quarter they lost the services of defensive enforcer and top rebounder Rio Blessyn and Mystics went on a points scoring charge to take the final quarter 23-13 and win the game.
Once again scoring proved difficult for the Northants girls but Amy Boot totalled 10 points and Steph Ogden in her own inimitable way recorded a magnificent 20 point total
Under-15 Girls Play-off Quarter Finals
Haringey Angels 81 Northants Lightning 50
Ask any coach what they look for in successful players, and most of them will answer that they would like technical ability, speed and strength combined with tactical awareness.
That is exactly what the Northants under 15 girls faced when they took on Haringey Angels last Saturday.
Add to this a very accomplished game coach and it is clear that the Northants girls would be really up against it.
The hard fact is that Lightning took a 30-plus point beating, but that really did not give a true reflection of the game which for long periods was very competitive.
The keys to the game lay in a storming start by Angels which took them into a 19-4 lead early in the first period of play, and a terrible period at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth when Lightning were outscored 18-1.
Other than those two spells, the County girls played some determined defence and committed offence to stay competitive with the very talented north London team.
After being outscored 23-9 in the first period of play Lightning coach Karen Goodrich switched her team to a zone defence and entered into a fascinating tactical battle with Angels coach Dan Bowmaker.
Haringey took the second quarter 25-22 and the two sides exchanged baskets for five minutes at the start of the third quarter before Lightning hit that nine minute drought to fall behind 77-43 and it was ‘game over’.
There were several positives for the young Lightning team with Charlotte Berridge top scoring with 15 points. Ruchae Walton just missed out on a double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds while Sarah Round scored nine points and Lauren Milne contributed seven points and pulled down nine rebounds.
As a team playing a year young, Lightning have probably over-achieved this season, but they face a summer of hard work if they are to go one better next season and reach the Final Four.