Surrey Storm fans witnessed yet another nail-biting encounter on Saturday evening at a sell-out Surrey Sports Park as the home team won by a solitary point. This single goal victory over Celtic Dragons came thanks to a late Rachel Dunn goal and upheld Surrey’s unbeaten status in the 2014 ZEO Superleague.
With a semi-final place already in the bag for Surrey Storm, Coach Tamsin Greenway made changes to the regular starting seven in an attempt to rotate the squad, with Lees starting at WA, whilst Flanagan moved across to GD and Greenway took the GA bib.
A shaky start for Storm allowed the Dragons to open the scoring, but was quickly rectified with some confident defending in an opening quarter that neither side was able to fully take control of. A number of contact calls under the goal against Celtic Dragons allowed shooters Dunn and Greenway (as pictured above) to confidently put chances away when they came and they took the lead for the first time with four minutes of the quarter left on the clock. After the first 15 minutes, the hosts held a 17-12 lead, despite the tight opening exchanges.
Storm started the second quarter well with Lees immediately lifting a tidy pass high into the waiting hands of Dunn to open the scoring and Surrey continued to extend their lead. However, this didn’t last long as the Celtic Dragons were determined to make something of the game and upped their tempo. The visitors managed to peg Surrey’s lead back to only two goals with some high pressure netball that forced Storm into making some uncharacteristic errors. At the half way point, the score was 31-28 and the late flourish handed the momentum back to the Dragons.
The third quarter saw a shake-up of positions with Katy Holland coming on at GD, Flanagan moving across to WD, Greenway taking her usual position of WA, and Katie Harris entering the game at GA. With the game looking like a goal-for-goal affair, Storm were comfortable sitting on a slender lead. Dragons continued to feed high ball after high ball into the notorious Timmy Cato who, like Dunn at the opposite end, was shooting with a 90%+ accuracy rate. The fiery Dragons really upped their game and Storm quickly found themselves leaking goals. It was the away side who would take a 44-47 lead into the final quarter and Surrey found themselves in the unusual position of being behind.
Knowing they were now on the back foot, Surrey Storm needed to come out of the blocks quickly to claw the lead back. Storm started well, immediately turning over the Dragons’ centre with Dunn bringing the goal margin back to one. And the score rotated evenly until just over a minute from time when Storm found themselves a player down as well. Goal defender Alex Sinclair was suspended from play at the umpire’s request for a two goal period, meaning Storm would have to play out the remainder of the game with six.
Nevertheless, Storm levelled the scores from the centre pass, but it did mean the Dragons now had possession and the extra woman to try and secure the win. With 47 seconds left on the clock, Storm shooter Katie Harris made the most important interception of the game off of the Welsh centre pass. It regained possession for the hosts and allowed Dunn to complete her 97% shooting success rate and bag a 63-62 win for Storm in the dying moments of the game.
The win keeps Surrey Storm top of the Superleague and still unbeaten this season, with a trip to winless Loughborough Lightning this Saturday (06.04.14) for a chance at securing a home semi-final in April.
James Martin