Derby Day 2015
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Netball crown Derby Day with a win Helena Bradbury on Derby Day’s late-evening feature match at the Sportspark erby Day saw UEA Netball 1st team take to the court like never before as the feature match of the day. With the bleachers rolled out in the Sportspark and a huge crowd turnout for both the UEA and Essex teams, the atmosphere was tense between the two sides on and off the court. Essex took the first centre pass scoring a goal straight from the off, followed by another after turning over UEA’s centre pass. For a moment it seemed that Essex could be a bigger challenge than anticipated, but UEA soon found their game, scoring two successive goals to bring the score back to 2-2 with massive cheers from the UEA crowds. Within five minutes UEA had stormed ahead with a lead of 12-3 after some brilliant shooting from Captain Asha Williams and Goal Shooter Becky Killett. The second quarter began with UEA leading 13-5 and Essex displaying some aggression on court, as they got frustrated with UEA’s strong defence. With Essex trying to force themselves into the D, UEA gained repeated penalty passes or shots from Essex contact. Essex seemed in disagreement with the umpires’ decisions despite causing contact multiple times. But UEA continued to play their own game, taking their lead up to 26-9. Despite Essex scoring from two of UEA’s centre passes, at half time UEA led 29-12. With the second half underway, UEA made some changes to their team and continued to score the goals, getting tips on the ball all over the court, slowing Essex’s game down. Five minutes in time was called as UEA Shooter, Hannah McNally, took a bad fall on an already injured knee. She was carried off to huge crowd support from the UEA camp and
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Photo: James Newbold
Maddie Ewer came on as Shooter. With amazing turnovers from UEA centre court players, Sally Grice and Samy Gibson, and consistently on target shooting from both Shooters holding their space in the D, UEA stormed ahead to end the third quarter 4116.Tension was high as the teams took to the court for the final quarter. Pressure from the UEA and Essex chanting didn’t seen to faze UEA as they worked the ball around the circle perfectly, scoring a goal straight away from their centre pass. Essex
“The girls were great throughout and that made the win feel even better” appeared tired and their frustration showed as their attacking players began to deliberately shove UEA’s defence with several fights for possession of the ball. Time was called again by the umpire who had words with Essex Goal Shooter and UEA Goal Defence, apparently threatening to end the game if Essex do not play a clean game. UEA’s defence, Nicola Ferguson and Rachel Dean, continued to dominate Essex’s attacking end, making it difficult for Essex to even get a chance to score. Tension between Ferguson and the Essex Goal Shooter appeared high and Essex supporters reflected their team’s aggression towards UEA with the noise between the two opposing crowds becoming deafening. The UEA players remained unfazed and consolidated their victory with the full time score 50-23 to UEA. Captain, Asha Williams, said of the game:
“We were so happy with both teams wins yesterday. There was such a great atmosphere all day and we were glad to contribute to UEA’s win. I was so proud of the girls, we played so well”. Earlier in the day the UEA Netball 2nd team also won their game. UEA showed dominance from the start with a 9-4 lead after the first quarter thanks to fantastic shooting from Fiona Bull and Emma Wilcox. Essex were again rough in their play, with UEA players having to work the ball around the court to get past them to goal. With a fantastic crowd turnout, the pressure showed on both sides performances as UEA just managed to hold onto the lead of 16-10 at half time.
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onsistently strong defence and interceptions from Goal Keeper, Jane Botcherby, ensured UEA kept the lead and centre court player, Gemma Goodswen, was always free to keep the ball moving down the court and support attacking players. After a strong third quarter for UEA, they increased their lead to 21-13, after only allowing Essex to score three goals in the whole 15 minutes. The final quarter started well with a brilliant first centre from UEA going straight to goal. However tiredness started to show with play getting scrappy on both sides and distractions from the Essex supporters. Essex continued to close the gap, but UEA held onto their lead with some fantastic defence and shooting, giving them a full time win of 26-24. Abbott-Lewis said after the match: “It was a tough fight in the end, but the girls were great throughout and I think that made the win over Essex feel even better. I’m so proud of my team”.
Basketball edge Essex after nervy finish Tim Hin-Tsui reports on UEA’s 66-64 triumph over spirited Essex
Photo: James Newbold
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he 2015 Derby Day basketball game reminded me a lot of the 2014 NBA Final. The San Antonio Spurs versus the Miami Heat. It was a clash between a team of equally matched players that played for each other and a team that played around super stars. But unlike the Spurs in 2014 who lead from start to finish, the Derby Day game wasn’t as easy as the home fans had hoped. Recovering from a bad start to the game, it took more than half way through the first quarter for the home team to finally take the lead for the first time in the game when the Score was 8-6 to UEA. Up until that point, the play from UEA was a mixture of solid defending and poor low post play that plagued the home side until the second half of the third quarter. It wasn’t plain sailing after UEA took the lead as Essex brought on their star guard duo into the team for which UEA didn’t manage to find an answer for until the second half. A rejuvenated Essex team began to build their offence play through their point guard who was able to dance around the UEA defence, who also was very reasonable in terms of his field goal percentage. If their rejuvenation was not enough, the away fans were in high spirits singing and cheering on for their team. Essex were able to reestablish their lead as the game enters half time with the score tied at 24-24. UEA came out for the third quarter playing some very fluid offence but just couldn’t seem to score. In one offensive play, the UEA players had missed a field goal attempt, won the offensive rebound, had another shot at the basket, missed and caught
the rebound again, had one more shot and missed yet again. Essex controlled most of the third quarter as the UEA offence broke down with no recognisable big man running the offence and grabbing rebounds. A lot of the UEA play concentrated on the perimeter, shooting three points but often UEA found themselves vulnerable to fast break counter attacks as there were no UEA players standing inside the paint grabbing rebounds. But it was also under these circumstances that the game really started to heat up in the third quarter. It was an alley-oop here, a block there and soon enough as both teams found their shooting rhythm, it started raining three pointers. UEA once again found their attacking flow in the fourth quarter as they played their big men in the fourth quarter. Finding easy buckets through the centres and the power forward and grabbing offensive rebounds as they manage to get to nine points ahead of Essex by the middle of the fourth quarter. As the minute ran down, Essex was desperately trying to over come the nine point gap through fouls and time outs in order to push the game into over time but UEA managed to smoother the late Essex push and win the game with despite Essex sinking a late three point shot. The game ended 66-64 to UEA. After the game, UEA team captain Tom Burnett was ecstatic with the result of the game and said that even during Essex’s late push, the team was still in control, knowing that all they needed to do was keep the ball in control and run the clock down.