Team Bath aim to bounce back after wafer-thin Mavericks defeat
Team Bath’s netballers aim to get back to winning ways when they host Leeds Carnegie on Monday (21 February) following a wafer-thin defeat at Hertfordshire Mavericks at the weekend.
The reigning champions suffered a single goal reverse at the hand of Mavericks – the team they beat in last season’s final – going down 42-41 in Saturday’s Fiat Superleague fixture.
It was Team Bath’s first Superleague defeat of the season and came despite a late surge that almost saw Team Bath overturn a 36-30 deficit in the last quarter.
Head coach Jess Garland said she could take plenty of positives from the game, including the performance of University of Bath Sports Performance student Mia Ritchie (pictured), who impressed at wing attack in only her second Superleague game and her first game of the season.
“You could say it was a risk to expose her to that game, but the reward was that she went and on did a really good job,” said Garland. “That’s staying true to the Team Bath way of doing things, which is showing confidence in our young players and exposing them to playing at this level.
“We lost it at the start of the game, but the margin was so small and we’ve got to keep things in perspective,” she added.
“We rotated so many players on Saturday and it was good to be able to expose some of our young players at this stage of the season. We’ve got more to come and I think it will be very different when we play them again later in the season.”
Saturday’s result means Team Bath are now third in the Superleague table behind the unbeaten Northern Thunder and also behind Mavericks.
Team Bath return to action on Monday when they host Leeds Carnegie at the University of Bath Sports Training Village in a televised fixture that was originally scheduled to be played in Leeds. The entertainment gets underway at 6.45pm.
“Leeds are a cohesive unit with a lot of young players and we’ll need to be smart against them,” added Garland.
The following Saturday (26 February) Team Bath host Glasgow Wildcats, with the entertainment getting underway at 4.45pm.
For further information and to buy tickets for these and other Team Bath home games please go to the ticketline website . You can also buy tickets from the events ticket line on 0844 888 4412.
Team Bath statistics v Hertfordshire Mavericks
Quarter scores:
(Mavericks first)
Q1: 15-10, Q2 10- 11 (25-21), Q3 11-9 (36-30) 6-11 (42-41)
Team Bath starting seven:
GS: Kirsty Delves, GA: Pamela Cookey, WA: Jo Binns, C: Serena Guthrie, WD: Stacey Francis, GD: Gemma Fletcher, GK: Eboni Beckford-Chambers.
Q3 changes: Rosie Alison to GS, Mia Ritchie to WA, Binns to C, Guthrie to WD, Francis to GD. Q4 changes: Delves to GS, Beckford-Chambers to GD, Francis to GK
Shooting stats:
Rosie Allison – 6/10 – 60 per cent
Pamela Cookey – 22/25 – 88 per cent
Kirsty Delves – 13/25 – 52 per cent
Posted: Wednesday 16 February 2011
