Macedon 52 Won 35 Riddells Creek
Round 15 was going to give us a chance to check in and see how we are fairing heading into the home stretch. With a full team back (minus Alex), we used this opportunity to continue to explore the depth we have in our team and make sure that we have all bases covered.
Riddell were undermanned and had to be creative with positions on the court and this made it very hard for us, as they didn’t play a ‘typical’ style of defence. With our typical starting 7 taking the court we eased into their tight man on man defences, taking a small amount time to adjust our leads and take the empty space. Our feeds and assists were clean and the goalers shot with 100% accuracy converting all 15 opportunity.
Another week where our 3 feet was precise and we weren’t overly penalised for contesting. Whole court defensive pressure meant that 6 players on court all recovered at least 1 ball. Riddell had 17 attempts at goal but couldn’t covert with our pressure over the shot. Our circle defenders rebounded 5 missed shots and sent them back down to our attack end. In a rush of blood, we threw 7 bad passes coming out of defence. A decent lead 15 – 8.
Bronte came on into the C and the other 6 players stayed on court. We were fairly clean and kept possession in this quarter. Chelsea adapted to a double-teamed centre pass and Bronte was clean in the delivery. Chelsea was strong with her feeds and assists and the goalers adjusted to the positional switch of the Riddell defenders. We converted 11 goals from 16 attempts, with all 5 misses falling out of court.
We were clean in defence and again attracted very little whistle. We spoilt a lot of passes (11) with most of our gains coming from the back end. Katie has 2 rebounds, 3 intercepts, 2 gains and 4 tips. Riddell were deprived of ball shooting 6 from 9 attempts. We shot the last 5 goals of the quarter to take a half time lead of 12 goals.
We made another change in the attack end, working on a different 7 combination. Shanae came into GS and Hayley back on into WD. We had 3 coach killers and 3 bad passes, a reflection of the players adjusting to the different attacking line up. Shanae put in another great performance, showing the potential she has to play goals. We scored 13 and of the 3 misses Shanae rebounded and had a second crack at.
We were kept a little quiet in the 3rd quarter, being penalised for more contacts across the court. 3 clean intercepts and 2 defensive rebounds added to the pressure that was piling up on Riddell. Riddell had their highest scoring quarter (10) missing 4 goals and rebounding 2 of those back after a tight tussle with our defenders. 39 -24. A strong 15 goal lead heading into the last quarter.
Another change in attack with Ash playing WA and Karlee playing centre. This was not our finest quarter with a lot of bad passes (7) and 2 fumbles to every player on court but Karlee. Ash was strong on the centre passes taking strong drives into space. We had our lowest amount of feeds but an increase amount of assist for the game. Shanae shot 12 of the 13 goals with no misses. Accuracy was not our problem but movement and delivery were. Something we need to work on at training.
Defensively we stayed in the contest although we were yet to play a box. Riddell were rushing the ball into their attack and Katie was in the back to clean up. She had 3 tips, 3 gains and an intercept. We needed strong defence as Riddell had a lot of ball in the last quarter putting up 16 goals but missing 5. We rebounded 2 of those, while Riddell goalers rebounded the other 3.
This was a game of hot and cold. We struggled to find consistency and a rhythm throughout the entire 60 minutes. We are very happy with the take away’s from this game and the 4 points. A solid win 52 – 35