Macedon (55) Won (34) Melton Centrals
We had a brand new starting 7 for todays game with Shanae getting a starting 7 position, Katie was moved out to GD, Alex played her 2nd game in A grade as a WD, Karlee was in the C, Chelsea played WA after arriving at quarter time, Chloe played out in GA, sharing the goal circle with Sammi and Georgia from B grade and Bella warmed the bench with Ciara.
Our attacking line up dominated with fast moving ball and uncontested centre passes. We valued possession and showed patience when feeding our goalers. Karlee played with smarts and landed every time on the ring to feed a clear pass to Sammi and Chloe. Even in the wind, our shooting was accurate scoring 14 goals from 17 attempts.
The volume of ball we received in attack was largely due to Shanae, Katie, Hayley and Alex’s defence. Although we were missing our experienced Janelle Tate, Katie and Shanae didn’t disappoint in the defensive circle. Our defensive line up collectively recovered 10 balls and deflected 3. They were clean in their defence and stayed in play. After a 7-goal run we finished the quarter 14 -6.
We made a few changes in the second quarter with Chelsea arriving to the game and Karlee’s face plant. Georgia took the court in GS to give Sammi a well earnt break, pushing Chloe out front in GA and Hayley moved into the centre. Chelsea dominated in WA on the centre pass receives and shared the assists with Hayley. This shows good ball movement in and around our circle and patience in feeding to a new goal circle. The goaling was shared with 16 goals from 19 attempts.
Our defensive line up remained strong but this quarter Georgia and Chloe contributed with an intercept each. Alex got hands to 3 spoils, 1 gain and an intercept, Katie had 2 gains and 2 rebounds and Shanae intercepted 2 balls and had 2 gains. Melton was kept to shooting under 50% in the 2nd quarter and Cats took a solid lead, setting them up for the 2nd half.
Karlee returned to the court for the 3rd quarter and we started with a goal for goal contest. Our attacking drives became tired and we started turning over balls through our GA and WA. We serviced our goaler reasonably well but fatigue in our goal circle meant that our shots weren’t sinking. We shot 10 from 16 attempts dropping our 3rd quarter winning margin.
Our defenders remained solid in the 3rd with no turnovers and very little whistle. Shanae’s height advantage and presence became a real asset as she recovered 6 balls. Whilst we recovered 9 balls from our GK and GD, Melton was creeping back into the game capitalising on our errors. Melton shot more accurately than us with 12 converted goals to our 10. We lost the 3rd quarter.
We broke off into attack and defensive ends and Caitlyn and Ciara gave the girls a real reeve up. We were expecting more than what we delivered in the 3rd quarter and demanded more for the 4th quarter. A few positional changes were made and the team needed some time to adjust. We had some brain fades with 6 bad passes coming from all over the court and 2 coach killers. The assists were evenly shared by our WA, GA and GS, which on a normal week would show our diversity but this week it was out of necessity. This is something we will work on at training this week. Chloe stepped up and showed her skill in GS shooting 14 of our 15 goals and Katie played a supporting role in an unfamiliar position as our GA.
Bella took the court for the first time in A grade in GD. She tagged her GA extremely well recovering 3 balls. We had our highest intercept count in the last quarter with 7. Defenders played consistently throughout the whole 4 quarter, in a variety of combinations. Melton shot 11 goals in the last quarter but with a 4 goal run in the last couple of minutes, we pulled away winning the 1st, 2nd and 4th quarter.
