Loughborough Lightning made the most of last night’s flying visit to Wales with a 37-27 win over Celtic Dragons in the Co-operative Netball Superleague.
Lightning blew away their Christmas cobwebs with an unanswered seven points in the opening minutes. Interceptions from the Lightning defensive unit and some cool shooting from England’s Jo Harten made for a confident looking team. Celtic Dragons regained their composure and towards the end of the quarter converted some of their pressure to scores, but Lightning matched them point for point and the period ended 10-3 to the visitors.
Dragons made the only change for the second quarter - Amanda Trance replacing Sarah Leach at Wing Attack. Her appearance seemed to add fluency to the Dragons attack, and the defensive pressure they put on the ball led to several turnovers. Lightning were effective in patches, with some good work from Katy Rose at Goal Attack, seeing them increase their lead to 20-10 at the halfway point.
A flurry of substitutions from Lightning at half time saw Kara Luck come on for Emma Bliss at Goal Defence, Sarah-Jane O’Sullivan replace Natasha Hampshire at Wing Attack and Jo Harten move to Goal Attack with Becky James coming on at Goal Shooter.
Lightning continued to make plenty of unforced errors which gave Dragons confidence in their game. Strong pressure on the Dragons’ shots and good rebounding from Hannah Reid kept the home side’s score line down, with Welsh international Becky James and Harten scoring inconsistently at the other end. Lightning edged the quarter win to leave the score at 31-19.
In the final quarter Dragons came out firing, desperate to overturn the visitors, and doing so with their first quarter win of the game. A disappointing game continued to produce unforced errors and bad decision making from Lightning who will need to step up for Sunday’s home match against Northern Thunder (11 January).
Lightning will not be happy with their overall performance, but another win keeps them in the hunt for the play-offs.
Tickets are still available for Sunday’s match against Northern Thunder at the Loughborough University Netball Centre. For prices and more information log onto www.loughboroughlightning.co.uk
Quarter Scores:
Q1: 3-10
Q2: 7-10
Q3: 9-11
Q4: 8-6
Shooting stats:
Jo Harten: 21/28, 75%
Katy Rose: 4/7, 57%
Becky James: 12/17, 71%
