Women's Report: Bristol Flyers 69-42 Sevenoaks Suns II

Ward opened the scoring with a fast-break layup, which was followed by threes from Liisa Juul and Hannah Wallace. Ellie Hutchinson replied for Sevenoaks with a three of her own, and Isabel Wood added another shortly after.

There was then a rise in defensive pressure, resulting in a lot of shot clock violations on both ends of the court. The scoring drought was ended when Erin Hunter threw a downcourt pass to Ward, who laid it up and in for two. She then added two more, and Bigica scored the final points of the quarter to give the Flyers a 20-11 lead after ten minutes.

Sevenoaks opened the second quarter with five unanswered points, and with the Flyers unable to match their opponents’ speed or make the most of their time in possession, the Suns closed the gap to three points. The Flyers found enough open looks to stretch out the gap, and Wallace gave them their first double-digit lead with 90 seconds left in the half. Ten points would be the gap between the teams as they both headed to the locker room.

Sevenoaks’Hutchinson opened the second half with a three, and shortly after Katie Bennett landed two threes in a row. The Suns had seven threes in the game and Bennett led all scorers with 21 points.

Ward then made a three of her own, and Michelle Tattersall kept the Flyers’ lead at double digits with two baskets in a row. A long cold streak followed, with neither team able to get a shot off. Tattersall broke this with a final layup to end the quarter, and take the Flyers’ lead to 20 points.

The Flyers remained in control in the fourth quarter, with Wallace and Bigica having the best looks. Bigica led the Flyers with 17 points in her home debut, while Wallace had 12 points to go with five rebounds. Sevenoaks, meanwhile, were held to just six points in the final period of play.

The result was no longer in doubt, and both teams coasted to the inevitable result. Leila Jepson put the game to bed with a three, which made the final score line 69-42 in the Flyers’ favour.

Head coach Gareth Till spoke afterward about managing the new-look team and how they managed to take control the game: “The most important thing is to keep improving as a team. We’re still learning to play with each other, last weekend wasn’t particularly good for us, and we made some progress this week, which was better.

“We changed up our defence in the third quarter, which was a key moment in the game. (Sevenoaks) are a good outside shooting team, so we focused on restricting those shots and offensively we started to move the ball better.” 

Bristol Flyers Women are always on the lookout for new players, coaches and volunteers.  Anybody who's interested and committed is always welcome to join the Flyers Family. Contact Flyers Women at flyerswomen@gmail.com 

Images Billy East Photography