Match Report: Storm sink Team Bath
In front of a full capacity crowd at the Sports Training Village Storm faced a new-look, and arguably inexperienced Team Bath squad.
Storm opted to start the same 7 as the previous 2 matches, with the mighty attacking combination of Dunn, Cookey and Greenway at the front combined with a solid back line of Seaton, Holland and Reid and captain Trippick linking in the middle.
Bath's starting combinations saw Kadeen Corbin out at GA with Asha Francis back in at GS whilst at the other end, in the absence of Beckford Chambers and Francis, both out playing in the ANZ league, Gemma Fletcher and Sam Cook formed their new look defensive end.
The first 15 minutes was all Storm who took the first 3 goals quickly and following a Greenway interception went 4-0 up. Storm's attacking end were moving the ball with ease and with the long feed into Dunn and Cookey's speed into the circle, Greenway and Trippick were never short of options on the feed. Bath managed to pull out a 3 goal run mid-way through the quarter to pull the scores back to 8-4, however Storm had other ideas. With Reid and Holland making life increasingly difficult for Bath's attacking end, they were forced into a number of errors which were quickly capitalised on, allowing Storm to pull to a 10 goal lead with 3 minutes to go. A couple of quick release long feeds into Dunn from Greenway straight off the centre pass stretched the lead to 13 at the break at 21-8.
An unchanged Storm outfit took to the court for the second period. However, unsurprisingly, Bath rang the changes with Garland opting to bring the cool head of Francis out on to court, switching her and Corbin. Mia Ritchie also moved from WA to the middle with Yas Parsons coming off the bench to WA. The first 2 minutes of the quarter saw Seaton come out with 2 brilliant intercepts and a long-bomb from Dunn saw Storm begin to stretch their lead and threaten to take the game out of Bath's reach at 27-11. However, Bath's new line up once settled were starting to successfully shut down Storm's second phase off the centre pass and slow down the ball speed in attack.
Another 3 goal run from the home side pegged a couple back to take the scores to 28-14 before an injury time-out for a knock to Greenway's ankle allowed both teams to re-group for the final 7 minutes of the half. In Bath's attacking end, Ritchie’s speed through the court, the vision and control of Francis and the faultless shooting of Corbin was allowing Bath to score more consistently, and for the majority of the period, the score went with centre pass with Bath eventually taking another high scoring quarter by 2 to go into half time trailing by 11 at 36-25.
The second half saw one of Storm's new signings take to the court in the form of Kat Ainsworth who came on at C for her NSL debut. The third period was another close-fought and fast-paced battle. Bath had really started to move the ball around in attack with some lightening quick interchanges between Francis and Corbin finding their way through the circle. Ainsworth and Greenway were forced to be more patient in feeding the circle as Dunn and Cookey found themselves in less space and Storm's error rate was creeping up as they were, at times, guilty of forcing the ball through the court. Despite this, Storm never really looked in danger of surrendering the lead and although Bath continued to fight on, they failed to break the 10-goal barrier and Storm took the period by 1 to go into the last 15 minutes 52-40 up.
The final 15 minutes saw more errors creep into the Bath game as they tried to plug back some goals. Storm, at times produced moments of magic but these were limited by Bath who continued to disrupt their flow and break up play. The final period was, unsurprisingly the lowest scoring of the game as the relentless pace began to take its toll and the final score saw the lead back to that of the first quarter at 13, with Storm taking the game 65-52.
Player Coach Tamsin Greenway had mixed feelings about the performance. She said, "I was really pleased with how we came out this evening and to put 21 goals on the board in the first quarter was great.
"When you go that far ahead it is difficult to push on and we were guilty of taking our foot off the gas at times. Credit to Bath, they came out and did things differently against us in the second quarter and I was a little frustrated with how we reacted to that. The girls gave it everything out there and for patches it was awesome, but we need to be more consistent with those patches and limit our errors. We still have lots to work on but that is what is so exciting about this team."
The result leaves Storm in second place in the Fiat Netball Superleague behind Northern Thunder, after they despatched Loughborough Lightning on Saturday night.
Surrey Storm's next game is a home fixture against Yorkshire Jets on Saturday 11th February. Tickets are SOLD OUT.
