Loughborough Lightning produced a magnificent performance to claim a 52-50 FIAT Netball Superleague victory over TeamBath.
Loughborough round off double-header with impressive win
Loughborough Lightning produced a magnificent performance to claim a 52-50 FIAT Netball Superleague victory over TeamBath.
With both teams playing the second match of a weekend double-header, Lightning finally delivered a result that confirms the apparent talent in their ranks.
They had been slipped to a 63-46 defeat against Northern Thunder on Saturday, but put that result behind them to see off defending champions TeamBath on home turf.
Sarah-Jane O'Sullivan and Olivia Murphy were able to police the centre court and reduce the options for their opponents, while Emma Bliss enjoyed an effective game in defence.
TeamBath travelled to Loughborough from Guildford with an obvious number of injuries, but that could not be blamed for the defeat as Lightning were smarter and made all the right moves at the right time.
Exciting
In an exciting contest, Lightning took the first quarter by one goal before TeamBath hit back with a four-goal win of the second, while winning the third by three meant Loughborough ensured the match was all square with 15 minutes to play.
Unforced errors cost the visitors and with the goal shooting percentages a little-off and Loughborough had enough discipline and accuracy to hold on for the win.
"It was an excellent team performance today and I'm obviously delighted with the result," Lightning player-coach Olivia Murphy said.
"Lightning have been threatening to put a display together and today we managed to do it for a full 60 minutes. The challenge now is to maintain this until the end of the season."
TeamBath head coach Jess Garland added: "Not good enough. We were unable to reproduce the performance of yesterday and all credit to Loughborough they were the better team today."
