Hertfordshire Mavericks skipper Louisa Brownfield led her team by example in the Co-operative Netball Superleague trip to Loughborough Lightning on Saturday 30th January, 2010, with a near perfect shooting performance. The England star missed just once in 38 attempts as he team won 61-35.
Irked by the manner of defeat to rivals Surrey Storm on Monday, Mavericks went all out for the win, that would keep them second in the table. Just two goals separated the sides at the end of a promising quarter and Loughborough coach Olivia Murphy was delighted that her seven were showing off their potential.
Mavericks opened up in the second and third quarters. Maggie Jackson's squad has a massive bank of experience to call on. Defensively the side was rock solid Nadia Hutchinson and Amanda Newton controlling the D, although to be fair Lightning striker Jo Harten had her eye in and made the most of the few shots she was able to take.
Mavericks midcourt are classy too and soon had the ball flowing into their attackers. Young Ella Clark was paired with her captain and should not be unhappy with her 80% success. Her coach (who has high expectations from the players) has not been overly impressed with her shooters in recent weeks had little to complain about this time out on court.
Louisa Brownfield played the first half as goal-shooter where she scored 8 from 8 in the first quarter, and 11 from 11 in the second. The skipper swapped bibs with Clark for the second half but continued her perfect run with 9 goals from 9 shots before the start of the final 15 minutes. Maybe she was flagging a bit by then because Louisa failed to net one, whole, entire shot and had to be satisfied with 9 out of 10 - that's a match shooting average of 97%.
Coach Maggie Jackson gave credit where it was deserved: " I am pleased that Hertfordshire Mavericks have returned to excellent shooting performances for us. Ella and particularly Louisa were outstanding".
She aslo reflected on the rest of the team's efforts "Loughborough Lightning really competed with us and made us have to work for the result. It was also good that I was able to use the combinations I planned for and worked towards."
Loughborugh's head coach Olivia Murphy admitted after the game that the Mavericks wealth of experience proved decisive in the match: "We have plenty to learn from today's performance, again we turned over lots of ball from two top quality shooters but failed to capitalise on them."
She added that she was very happy with inspiration flashes from her side and with the way they started the match but felt in the end they were not quite competitive enough. Olivia Murphy noted her captain had done a good job in tough circumstances: " Jo Harten once again led the Lightning attack line with clinical finishing, but we didn't give her enough of the ball."
By Lisa O'Sullivan
Match Umpires
Louise Travers, Ann Abriatus and Kim Burns
MATCH STATS ARE AT WWW.NETBALLSUPERLEAGUE.COM
