NBL1 Season Opener vs North Adelaide Rockets
Women
The new look Norwood Flames are trying to start their season strong against a very strong North Adelaide Rockets. Round 1 is an exciting round for every club as everyone is on an even playing field and every team is hungry to make a strong first impression. The Flames are hoping that new additions like Amanda Paschal will bring an edge to a solid squad full of young talent.
The first quarter opened with very good ball movement from the Flames, they were getting into the keyway with ease, drawing multiple defenders and kicking out for open looks. Unfortunately, the shots weren’t dropping to start and the full court pressure from the Rockets was disrupting Norwood’s guards. This led to a quick lead for North Adelaide who were attacking the paint and abusing their size to get easy points. A timeout and some adjustments from head coach Will Smith saw the Flames start to string together stops, unfortunately the North Adelaide defence was stifling, limiting Norwood to contested 3-point looks. A big 3 from Maddy Hinton brought the Flames closer and looked to spark some energy from the Flames. The quarter ended, Norwood trailing 11-18.
The Rockets’ strong defensive performance continued into the second quarter. The Flames struggled to break the tough defensive line and couldn’t find easy rim looks to start generating offence. Finally, Amanda Paschal was able to end the drought and get the Flames into the scoring column almost 3 minutes into the quarter. Meanwhile, the Rockets were using their aggressive defence to fuel their offence and went on a scoring streak, breaking out into a big lead halfway through the first. The Flames rediscovered their defensive intensity and forced the Rockets into difficult possessions, these ended in long rebounds and enabled Norwood to attack a scrambling defence and get some better looks. The scores 20-35, Norwood trailing at halftime.
The second half started much better for the Flames with a quick transition bucket from Sophie Kerridge, the first of her two quick buckets which ignited the Flames offensively. Amanda Paschal converted a tough and-1 finish to bring the game back into single digits but the Rockets weren’t giving up and answered with a big three. The youthful energy of the Flames was disrupting the more mature playstyle of the Rockets, Norwood able to drive with strength and draw fouls continuously, entering the bonus with 4 minutes to play in the quarter. The maturity of the Rockets kept them steady through the Flames comeback attempts and a few big threes extended their lead out to 17. Norwood trails, 37-51 going into the closing quarter.
The fourth started slowly for both teams, the ball was very stagnant on both ends and most plays ended close to the expiration of the shot-clock. Unfortunately, North Adelaide’s experience shone through again as they were composed late in the shot-clock and found their way to some easy buckets. Until the final quarter the Flames were very competitive on this game, looking like a real threat to take this game against a very strong Rockets squad. The final score in this game, 74-43. But the score doesn’t tell the whole story and there were a lot of positive takeaways from the game for Norwood.
