Sport Central played host to a dramatic clash in the WBBL Championship as Team Northumbria took on Oaklands Wolves.
The teams couldn’t be separated as the buzzer sounded after a free throw with seven seconds left on the clock saw Oaklands draw the game level at 64-64 - taking the game into overtime.
But TN dominated in OT to close out a 77-70 victory and coach David Unwin said: “After the previous week’s tough defeat and a long trip back from Cardiff we wanted to get that out of our system and so getting the victory feels really nice.
“Maybe sometimes we made it a bit more difficult for ourselves than it needed to be - Oaklands came with a positive attitude obviously wanting to get the win.
“They came out hard and we had to adapt to that. It was a really tough game in the end.”
The first two quarters saw TN lead by a single point and throughout the game it was hard to separate two determined sides.
“The plan going into the game was to try to get into them early and prevent them building any momentum but unfortunately they managed to get into the game as it drew on,” added Urwin.
“The experience of our players - the likes of Nicolette Fong Lyew Quee and Alison Gorrell - really carried us through in the later stages of the game. And Claudia Baraut came through and hit the clutch free throws at the end of overtime to take us to the victory.
“The focus all week was about the girls playing for each other and with each other.
“When it came to overtime I told the girls we have five minutes left - five minutes to get the victory for ourselves and for our team mates and that’s what we did.
“We played for each other all game long and that’s all we were really looking for.”
.jpg_62276aa9abc9d.png)
