Match Report - Team Thunder 04.11.2018

Thunder hosted Sydenham Gems today knowing that last season they narrowly beat them when at home. It felt like the fireworks had come a little early, when two of Titans netballs exploded. One when practising in the warm up, and then the reserve ball in the first quarter. It certainly gave us all a fright.  Gems had the strongest start taking a three goal lead, but Thunder didn't let their heads drop. A few errors and missed shots initially were ironed out, and Louise Lathwell was then on fire with superb long range shots. Rowan Fitzsimmons read the game well, and made great decisions when in attack. It took 10 minutes for Lorraine Cleverdon Brend to need to shoot, but when she did, she was superbly accurate too, and Thunder came in at quarter time 15-9 up. The 2nd quarter was a bit more difficult. Gems WD tipped some great passes from her first stage defence, so Nicole Lathwell had to adjust and reset, and therefore the other attackers had to change their timing. Ruth Chamings and Daisy Totterdell also tipped lots of balls, but they couldn't capitalise, and they only extended their lead by 1 goal to 23-16 at half time.

The third quarter was also quite steady with much end to end play. Katrina Venner took to the court, and made an immediate impact, applying pressure in as WD. Lucy Burnett linked well between defence and attack and controlled her feeds in to the circle. Coming in, we were now 33-24 up. In the final quarter, Thunder upped the pace a bit when Gems were failing, and pulled away to a 44-29 win. Nicole Lathwell was voted Player of the Match by both teams. Well done & well deserved.

Team Line Up: Daisy Totterdell, Ruth Chamings, Rowan Fitzsimmons, Lucy Burnett, Nicole Lathwell, Lorraine Cleverdon-Brend, Louise Lathwell & Katrina Venner.