WBBL Season Review

WBBL Season Review

A highly promising and successful season for the WBBL Eagles.  Cup and Trophy exits to all conquering Sevenoaks Suns but a title chasing season for the Eagles until the Coronovirus pandemic caused the season to be cancelled.

The season started with the WBBL Trophy and a big win against Caledonia Pride in the first match up (48-73).  The second matchup in the Trophy group stages was against the Sevenoaks Suns the day after the win against Pride.  Sevenoaks Suns ran away with the match in the end at 81-57 despite a 18 point performance from Georgia Ohrdorf.  As only the top team in our mini group qualified for the next round it was Sevenoaks Suns who progressed.

Next up for the WBBL Eagles was a home tie against Cardiff Met Archers in the WBBL Cup.  What followed was the largest win of the season! 95-44 with big numbers being put up by Anja Fuchs-Robetin (20 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists) and Mante Kvederaviciute (26 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists).  They moved into the next round of the Cup and the tie would be played in December against Manchester Mystics.  For now though, attention turned to the start of the league championship.

First on the agenda was another meeting with Sevenoaks Suns, this time at home at the ECA.  Although the game was a lot closer than the meeting in the Trophy, the Eagles were always behind and despite a strong fourth quarter they had left themselves too much to do.  A first win in the championship wasn’t far away as Essex Rebels travelled up north.  The Eagles running out winners by 90-80 with a HUGE 28 point and 15 rebound performance from Lisa Koop.  This victory started an 8 game winning streak in the Championship. 

The short away trip to Durham was next on the fixture list and this provided arguably the performance of the season against a strong Durham side, that only just missed out on Cup triumph this season.  The Eagles won 58-73 with another fantastic team performance with Georgia Ohrdorf scoring 20 points and grabbing 17 rebounds! Rachael Bland, for the second match in a row, put on a strong performance scoring 23 points and 15 rebounds across the 2 matches.

Manchester Mystics were next to feel the full force of the WBBL Eagles with the Eagles winning by 68-83. Mante Kvederaviciute was the next to star for the WBBL Eagles as Sheffield Hatters were defeated.    Mante’s near triple double of 27 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists leading the way for another memorable victory.  The last league meeting before the next round of the cup was a big win away at Cardiff Met Archers.

Back to the cup, this time another meeting with Manchester Mystics.  This time the match was slightly closer than the previous meeting but the Eagles still walked away with the home win.  It was another fantastic performance with everyone contributing to the team performance.

In mid December, a short handed roster took the trip to Oaklands Wolves with the Eagles winning 69-96.

Lisa Koop (20 points, 21 rebounds, 3 blocks)

Rachael Bland ( 6 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists)

Georgia Ohrdorf (24 points, 13 rebounds, 3 steals)

Mante Kvederaviciute (31 points, 7 rebounds, 13 assists and 3 steals)

Anja Fuchs-Robetin (15 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists)

A brilliant set of stats! A very exciting team to watch.

The cup quarter final was next and Sevenoaks Suns were the opponents.  This was the closest of the 3 matches this season.  The Eagles were ahead at half time and at the third quarter break but couldn’t hold on for the win despite leading with only 1 minute left.  This team deserved to win some silverware this season so it was a shame the Sevenoaks won again but they are certainly a team to be proud of.

Back to the league action and the Eagles were 6 games into their 8 game winning streak in the league.  The final two victories came against Caledonia Pride (72-47) and Nottingham Wildcats (68-66).  

Defeat came at the hands of Leicester Riders and Sara Hinriksdottir, who was named in the team of the season. She finished with 27 points and 6 rebounds. The match finished 61-63.

Following the defeat to Leicester the Eagles won their next 3 matches. 2 against London Lions and then a 2 point win against Essex Rebels.

The final game of the season, due to Covid-19, was a defeat to Sheffield Hatters.  It was a shame to finish the season with a defeat but overall it was a strong season the Eagles could be very proud of.  Georgia Ohrdorf was named in the TUBPodcast team of the season and others in the team would not have been far away from making an appearance.  At the end of this season we say goodbye to Giulia Simioni and Georgia Ohrdorf who have been a joy to watch in their time in the North East.

Could silverware head to the WBBL Eagles next season? We sure hope so! 

BBL Season Review

BBL Season Review 2019-2020

A strange season to review.  Ultimately, the Eagles won their 25th Trophy in their history so all in all it was a successful season after two seasons without a trophy.  Passport issues, Changing personnel and Ian Macleod’s first season as Head Coach made for a very eventful season!

The season started with the news that Fab was moving to America to work with the Toronto Raptors in the NBA.  After so long with the club this came as a blow.  It wasn’t long until it was confirmed that Ian Macleod would step up as Head Coach for the season.

There was a new format for the BBL season this year with an extended cup competition to begin the season.  The season started with a lot of promise as the Eagles won their opening two matches with big performances from Rahmon Fletcher and Mike Morsell getting the season off to the best possible start.  The first defeat of the season came at the ECA against Glasgow Rocks in an OT thriller with the Eagles going down by a point.  The Eagles bounced back in the best possible fashion with two away wins against Leicester and Cheshire.

Moving into the All Stars break the Eagles were 4-1 in the Cup competition and considering the continued problems with Rodney Glasgow Jr’s passport this was a very encouraging start to the season.  The Eagles made it through to the semi finals of the All Stars tournament losing to London Lions.

The All Stars break came at the wrong time for the Eagles as they lost their next three matches after that falling to 4-4 in the cup.  Two big wins against Manchester Giants saw the Eagles move into the next round of the competition.  The first match against Manchester turned out to be John Mitchell’s final game for the Eagles.  He finished his season averaging 14.7 points, 10.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists over his 9 game spell.

Enter C.J Gettys.  CJ’s debut came against Worcester Wolves in the next round of the Cup and despite 18 points the Eagles went down by 4 points.  That was the end of the competition for the Eagles in a competition that Worcester went on to win.

The league campaign started with the long trip down to Plymouth where the Eagles won 110-103 in a very high scoring game.  The top scorers for the Eagles were Fletcher with 32, Gettys with 24 and Morsell with 24.  The season continued very well with a HUGE win over Manchester Giants (131-63). Positive vibes were evident as they were due to face Sheffield. 

The first defeat of the championship season came in that game against Sheffield despite another big performance from CJ. The Eagles losing by a considerable margain of 23 points.  Two days after that the Eagles travelled up to Glasgow in one of the most memorable matches of the season and a brilliant fourth quarter comeback to beat Glasgow by 4 points.  CJ Gettys finished the weekend with 42 points and 33 rebounds across the two matches.  

The inconsistent season continued in the league with the Eagles next 8 matches looking like… WLWLWLWL.  During that spell of games was another sensational performance against London Lions. The final result was 108-97 with MVP going to CJ for his stellar performance of 30 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.  Not even a 33 point performance from GB international Ovie Soko could stop an Eagles home victory in front of another sell out crowd.  As part of the win lose sequence the Eagles fell heavily to Leicester Riders during this run of games as well as they couldn’t get a run of wins together.  Before the Coronovirus hit the country the Eagles were 7-6 in the league and 6th in the league table.

The Eagles saved the best performance until last.  They travelled to Glasgow with a limited squad and in very uncertain times.  They returned home with the Trophy after an OT classic. Our trophy campaign started in the new year against NBL side Dunfermline Reign.  It was a professional performance from the Eagles which provided our biggest win of the season.  Next up was Sheffield and with our record at this point in the season against Sheffield at 0-3 the Eagles were probably the underdogs going into the tie.  They came out victorious 86-79 with Rahmon Fletcher picking up MVP for the match with his 30 points, 9 assists and 4 rebound performance.  Onto the semi finals; a 2 legged tie against Cheshire Pheonix.  The first leg was away and the Eagles won and took a valuable 9 point lead into the second leg at the ECA.  Back at home for the second leg the Eagles did their best in the forth quarter to allow Cheshire back into the game but they held on to make the final. (Just…)

As mentioned previously the Eagles saved they best performance until last! 96-94 win in OT against NBL champions Solent Kestrels.  

Here are the stats from the game:

Glasgow (40:36mins) 10 pts, 5 asts, 4 rbs

Saunders (24.42mins) 6 pts, 4 rbs

Defoe(42:50mins) 23 pts, 3 asts, 11 rbs

Gettys(40:26mins) 21 pts, 7 asts, 17 rbs

Fletcher(42:42mins) 29 pts, 6 asts, 5 rbs

Lasker(33:44mins) 7 pts, 10 rbs

Check out those numbers! When you consider CJ and Drew hadn’t played for a few weeks as well it makes the team performance even more remarkable. We will remember this game for a long time to come!

Here’s to next year...

Eagles POTD

We recently used our social media to find out a fans player of the decade.

The final 16 were chosen carefully with some input from other fans on the social media platforms. Notable absentees included Drew Sullivan who didn't play much for the Eagles during the decade.

I decided there was no fair way to seed the brackets so I just randomised the draw. This brought a very interesting half of the bracket including 4 MVP winners!

The first round was pretty straight forward according to the results. Very one sided ties. Moving into the second round there was an epic battle between Drew Lasker and Charles Smith. Over the 24 hours that the polls were open the lead changed several times with Charles Smith just overtaking Drew in the final few hours. The other ties were pretty one sided apart from Fletcher vs Chapman. Moving into the semi finals and Rahmon and Fab had enough to move into the final. The final was pretty close all the way through the vote. The players were level at different times during the day. Again, in the final few hours Rahmon pulled away and won by 11 votes.

It was really interesting to hear people's reasons for voting for certain players and it was brilliant hearing different memories of players as they all brought so much talent to the Eagles! Well Done to Rahmon Fletcher who is a joy to watch...Hopefully many more years to come!