Breakers Women dominate the Hawks

West Yorkshire Hawks Women (39) v MK Breakers Women (97)

After defeating West Yorkshire Hawks 39-97 on the road in their penultimate game of the regular season, the league trophy is in touching distance for the MK Breakers Women.

The only thing now standing in their way is the team that handed the Breakers a loss earlier in the season, the Tees Valley Mohawks. The Breakers will face the Mohawks at Bletchley Leisure Centre at 1:15pm on Saturday 7th March.

The trip to Huddersfield to play West Yorkshire Hawks was an eventful one before the game even started. What could only be described as an unreliable minibus forced the women to make several unplanned stops on the way up the M1. Despite all the problems and challenges, the women still arrived with 45 minutes to spare and even managed to get a mechanic to take a look at the minibus before the tip-off. Their focus then turned to the task at hand.

With the Hawks only able to field seven players, the plan for the MK women was to play a fast-paced game. The Hawks were the first to score with an early 3-pointer, but MK responded with back-to-back 3-pointers from Lauren Dabbs and they went on to dominate the first quarter. Their stifling defence held West Yorkshire to just eight points whilst at the other end of the floor they poured in 22 points.

The Breakers maintained their scoring rate in the second period adding another 22 points to their total with scores coming from fast-breaks, 3-pointers and some intelligent interior passing. MK’s ability to create scoring opportunities was impressive, but the defensive intensity dropped slightly and allowed the Hawks to have a more successful period than the first. However, this didn’t stop the Breakers from extending their lead and they entered the mid-game break with a comfortable lead (22-44).

Throughout the season, Coach Round has emphasized the need to be a 40-minute team, so it was more of the same in the second half. The team dialled up the defence after half-time which resulted in a number of successful fast-breaks and the work done in training in recent weeks on the zone offences proved fruitful. West Yorkshire could only manage a single-figure total in the third period (9 points) whereas MK were able to hit shots from inside and outside on their way to a 31 point lead at the end of the third quarter (31-62).

The difference between the two teams was highlighted in the final quarter. To West Yorkshire’s credit, their seven players kept going until the final buzzer but fatigue towards the latter stages of the game was inevitable. Coach Round had been able to rotate his players so tiredness was less of an issue and MK were able to showcase their full repertoire of scoring threats which resulted in another 35 points. Once again, the Hawks didn’t quite reach double-figures in the quarter (8 points).

In the 58-point win, Lauren Dabbs and Sarah Round both hit four 3-pointers on their way to 26 points and 20 points respectively and Courtney Gray also reached double figures with 16 points.

After the game, Coach Round commented, “Whilst there were lots of positives to take from this game, Tees Valley will provide a much tougher test. If we can stay tight as a unit one more time, there’s a good chance that we’ll be able to call ourselves league champions at the end of next week’s game.”

Lauren Dabbs led the Breakers in scoring with 26 points.