Home Court Advantage for Wolves in Close Game for Essex Rebels

The Essex Rebels Women’s basketball team fell in a close game this past weekend to the Oaklands Wolves. The two teams had previously met in the season, with the Rebels coming out on top. However, the Wolves used their home court advantage well to get a victory 57-52.

The first half saw the teams battle back and forth, each with their own respective scoring runs and tough defence. During one particular stretch, the Rebels stopped the Wolves from scoring on 12 straight possessions. Despite the defensive pressure, the Rebels who are usually a high scoring team, were unable to put the ball in the basket and finished the half with just 23 points. The Wolves entered the half with just a few more at 28. 

The second half was much the same for the Rebels, with clear looks at the basket but just unable to get their shoots to drop. That, coupled with a loss of focus on the defensive end resulted in the team finishing the game 5 points behind when the final buzzer sounded. 

Head Coach Tom Sadler had this to say about his team’s performance, “You aren’t going to win games if you miss 24 lay-ups, which we did. To say we are disappointed in this performance is an understatement. I don’t know if it was a lack of focus, or the team are just physically and mentally tired from the schedule, but whatever it is we need to figure it out and fast. We’ve gone away from running our offence and playing high energy, in your face type defence. We talked as a team about how basketball will reveal character and it will be interesting to see how the team bounce back. All we can ask for is energy and effort and today we didn’t get that. I’m confident if we can find that again we will grab a couple more wins this season.”

Top Performers Rebels:

Ashleigh Munns – 16 points

Lu Costa – 13 points, 10 rebounds

Top Performers Wolves:

M. Emmanuel-Carr – 17 points, 9 rebounds

G. Uprus – 10 points, 7 rebounds

L. Milligan – 10 points, 11 rebounds

The Rebels need to bounce back fast as they take to the road this weekend as they face top of the table and recent Trophy winners London Lions on Friday and then drive up to Newcastle on Sunday to take on the Eagles.