Macedon 16 DEF BY Melton 29
On Saturday, we travelled to Melton to take on their Under 19s team, who we knew would be a challenge. When we arrived, the court was already wet. Once we got started in the first quarter, ball handling errors let us down. We had too many fumbles, and goal misses too. The circle defenders did some hunting with some success, but we’d already given away quite the lead to them. Centrals lead at the first break 8 goals to 3. The second quarter we were able somewhat keep with them, even though we turned over much more ball in our attacking half. To our benefit the rain started to fall. This slowed up the Centrals girls and we scrapped hard for the loose balls, with success. Abbey was a new face in the GD position this week and she certainly showed just how versatile she can be (5 intercepts, 3 gains, 2 deflections for 3 quarters of GD). She stuck tight to her goaler, trying to get hands on the ball and disrupt play. We converted 5 goals in this quarter compared with Centrals 7. The half time score was 15-8. Much cleaner ball skills in the third quarter, but our recoveries dried up. We found ourselves asking for the ball too wide or asking for it long, rather than coming forward and playing short in the wet. Georgie’s feeding into the ring was important for us in this game, as she took the bulk of our feeds and assists (14 feeds, 7 assists). The score at three quarter time was 22-12. Our defenders recovered ball for us in the last quarter but it was the last few minutes where we let Melton have a four-goal run, meaning the scoreboard looked a little worse than it should have. Beth had a serviceable game in goals, converting the majority of our team’s score. We ended losing the game 28-16. If we are to eat into this difference next time we play them, we will need to shoot more goals per quarter to put scoreboard pressure on them. While we don’t strive for a loss, we certainly played a lot better than the week before. This time against a quality, top 3 team. Thanks to Milly Sims for filling in for us, very much appreciated, especially when three of our players called in sick so close to the game. As we look towards the Woodend’s fixture this week, we will definitely be striving to get back onto the winner’s list.
Best on: Abbey Lambert
