ELS Women’s Basketball 1st team secured a spot in the BUCS play-offs after grabbing a comfortable 67-49 win at home against Hertfordshire University last Wednesday.
The win comes after a defeat away to Cardiff Met last week which saw ELS fall short of finishing first in the Conference championship.
Shooting guard, Olivia Couch spoke after the game and feels optimistic going into the play-offs.
Best
“Overall as a team, I feel like we worked to the best of our ability and tried to work together.
“When we do that, we always end up with a win so for today I thought we played really good.
“This win today was actually major. Last week if we would have beaten Cardiff, it would have put us 1st in the Conference.
“This one today was to secure our spot in the play-offs. We’re finishing third in the Conference for now, but this one secures that spot and we are grateful for that,” said Couch.
Chance
Couch also knows that they will have to work on their defence if they want to stand a chance of going all the way.
Couch added: “As long as we play as a team and we really work on our defence we will do well going into the play-offs.
“As long as we work on that and carry on playing the same offence and good defence, I think we will be solid and we will do great.”
The home side started slow with Hertfordshire picked the ELS defence as they finished the first quarter level on points with 18-18.
ELS began to dominate the game in the second quarter after some adjustments were made during their time out calls.
Centre, Zahra Serrieh made a great play in the free-throw line, beating two opponents before setting up shooting guard Lavinia Da Silva for two points.
With four minutes on the clock, a reverse favour was paid, with Da Silva beating three Hertfordshire players to assist Serrieh for another two points to extend their lead.
Lead
The game began to get away from Hertfordshire when Ann Sheaia picked the ball up outside the three-point line and scored three points for the home side, to give them an eight-point lead going into half-time.
The last two quarters saw an outstanding performance put on by point guard Viktoria Ivanova who picked up 3 points back to back to extend the lead and put the home side in a comfortable position to finish off the game.
ELS will take all the positives from the victory and use this momentum when they face their next opponents in the BUCS play-offs next week.
