D1 Women weekend preview
4th March 2011by Dave Ryan
Women's Division One leaders City of Sheffield Hatters have two home games this weekend as they look to close in on the league title. The reigning champions host fourth-placed Leeds Carnegie on Saturday before Team Northumbria are the visitors the following day.
Hatters go into the weekend with only one loss in their 14 games this season, and will look to use their game in hand over their immediate challengers as they aim for a fifth straight league title.
Carnegie will arrive at All Saints School with a 9-7 record and have run the Hatters close in both meeting this season.
Hatters have only met Northumbria once this season and visiting coach Deirdre Hayes team will look to improve on that 105-66 home loss. Northumbria are also in action on Saturday when they host Sevenoaks.
The sides in joint second place are both in action in the south east on Sunday, with UWIC Archers visiting Brentwood to play Barking Abbey Leopards, and Nottingham Wildcats travelling to Brixton to face the Topcats.
Archers and Nottingham have 12-3 records, and realistically neither can afford any slips during the run-in if they are to deny Hatters the title, while Leopards are seventh with four wins from 14 games and Topcats prop up the eight-team division with a 1-15 record.
Despite the Leopards' lowly league position and having only picked one win in their last six games, coach Damian Jennings is expecting a difficult game at Brentwood:
"Leopards at their place is always a tough road trip. They took us to the wire last time so we know we are in for a very tough game.
"They may not have been producing the results or maybe even the performances they have wanted, but there is enough quality to not only score well, but also enough size to win the rebound battle and make an interior offense difficult.
"We have not had a convincing road performance yet this season so we have our own mini performance goals in that alone. If we can produce anything close to parts of our fourth quarter versus Sevenoaks more consistently and from the start, we become a very difficult team to score against and stop," he said.
Archers' previous visit to Brentwood saw them run out 64-55 winners, but as Jennings says, they faced a tough battle. The visitors led 19-17 at the first break but were pegged back to 29-29 at half-time. The home side led by five midway through the third period, but Archers fought back to lead 43-40 at the final break and eventually sealed things from the foul line as they outscored the visitors 21-15 in the fourth quarter.
Leopards coach Damian Kennedy is looking forward to an improved performance from his side, saying, "Sunday's game is an opportunity against one of the premier teams this season. We will have a full squad to choose from. Our last two performances have been disappointing so Sunday gives us the chance to get back on track."
Topcats have also proved difficult opponents for Wildcats, making them fight for their pair of wins against them. November saw a 70-64 win on the road - but only after a strong third period from the hosts left them hanging on. In the return, it was Wilesea Hardy who proved the difference with 23 points as a strong second period paved the way for a 66-56 Nottingham win. Ijeoma Ofomata led Topcats with 22.