Women’s Norwood Flames vs Central Districts Lions
A tough matchup is ahead for the Norwood Flames (3-6) as they go up against the top-of-the-ladder Central Districts Lions (8-1). The Flames have had a shaky start to the season but are looking to create some momentum under head coach Will Smith. The Lions have been a dominant offensive team this season totalling almost 100 points more than the second-highest-scoring team. The Flames will have a tough job on defence but hopefully, they can get the job done.
Norwoods’ defence forced the Lions to start the game slow, making them inefficient to begin the contest. Unfortunately, these stops didn’t transition into points on the offensive end and the Flames saw themselves on the bad end of an 8-0 start. Polly Turner opened the scoring for Norwood with a triple and a trip to the charity stripe saw the Flames back into the game with their own 5-point run. However, the Centrals’ offence couldn’t be kept quiet for long as they started to score consistently and kept the scoreboard active for the remainder of the quarter. The Flames looked initially shellshocked and fell behind by 11. A timeout settled the team and they fought hard for the last minute of the quarter bringing the game back to 17-23.
The Lions’ offence regained rhythm after struggling towards the end of the first, being able to score at all 3-levels. The Flames haven’t played against a team this offensively focused, and they struggled to string together stops, letting the Lions maintain momentum blowing the game out to 14 points. The Flames’ offence was struggling as they couldn’t feed off their stops, going against a set defence every possession led to difficult offensive patches. The Flames struggled all quarter but an impressive pull-up from Maddy Hinton on the buzzer sent Norwood into halftime with something to cheer about, down 29-43.
Coming out of halftime it seemed like the Flames were going to keep up with the Lions’ offence, scoring and trying to match the production which Centrals was so consistently producing. For the first 5 minutes of the quarter, the Flames were able to do so, only allowing the lead to be expanded when they matched a 3 with a 2. Otherwise, the Flames were able to match the Lions, for half the quarter. After this the Lions’ stepped up both their offence and defence, cutting out any transition points for the Flames, forcing them into a tough halfcourt setting. Fueling their offence with stops the Central Districts again started to blow the game out, this time there was no answer and the Lions were able to extend their lead to almost 30, going into the third 44-73.
Hot shooting started the fourth quarter with 5-straight in 30 seconds for the Flames, they needed to maintain this level of offence to make this a competitive affair. Unfortunately, the Lions didn’t let this happen. They wanted to shut the game out early in the fourth and their determination was enough to achieve that goal. The offensive firepower that the Central Districts have been putting on display all season was too much for the Flames who ended the game losing 70-93.
