Bradford Dragons Women’s Basketball continued their charge towards making the final eight teams nationally in the National Founders Cup on Saturday 21st January with a resounding 68 – 22 home win versus Derby Trailblazers in the England Basketball Women’s National Founders Cup North group.

Dragons had already played Derby Trailblazers this season with a 70 – 41 victory but a challenging game was highly anticipated with Derby having a good mix of talented young and experienced players... unfortunately Derby arrived with only 6 players plus missing their key player Sue Hemsley and so the game was heavily weighted in the Dragons favour!

Derby opened the scoring with Azemia making 1 of 2 free throws and although Dragons worked hard to create open shots versus Derby’s tough defence, it wasn’t until the third minute of the game until Aleksandra Mazjakina hit a 3 pointer to help Dragons take the lead.  Laura Moloney added to this with a block followed by strong basket in transition, followed by Aleksandra hitting a long shot plus the game’s highest scorer Dana Kima making her shot count forcing Derby to call a timeout.  Derby managed to hold off the Dragons attack for a couple of minutes until Claire Doherty and Sammy Drake both scored in quick succession to finish the quarter 13 – 1 up.

During the second quarter both teams traded baskets on an 18 – 12 split but as the game went on fatigue set in for Derby as Dragons went on a 20 – 0 run including 6 of Dana’s 13 points.  Derby managed to score just one point in the 3rd quarter from a free throw to finish 51 – 14 up!  Derby continued to play hard throughout the rest of the game but for every point Derby scored, Dragons doubled it whilst experimenting with various defences.  Esther Nabikolo made 1of 2 free throws finishing the game 68 – 22 to Dragons.

Coach Gunn commented; “With all 11 Dragons players sharing court time we picked up a big win today with several players scoring 10+ points, yet we still have a lot to work on as a team and we are far from where we realistically want to be!  In being our first season together it’s taking time but in taking it game by game focusing on pushing each other hard our performance as a team and strength in depth is always improving as demonstrated by Dana and Charline Poirson today taking control of opposing guards and the game tempo.”

In the coming week Bradford Dragons Women’s Basketball look forward to announcing a new signing to the squad to help bolster the squad’s depth for the second half of the season!”

BDWB Scorers = Dana Kima (13), Aleksandra Mazjakina (12), Claire Doherty (11), Sammy Drake (10), Natalia Laing (6), Claudia Caramidaru (5), Laura Moloney (4 – FTs 0 of 2), Charline Poirson (4), Lynda Alderson (2), Esther Nabikolo (1 – FTs 1 of 1) and Svenja Schmidt.

Elsewhere in the England Basketball Women’s National Founders Cup North group, Huddersfield Heat beat Slam Dunkin Divas 67 – 21 to move up to second on points difference.

Bradford Dragons Women’s Basketball next game is on Sunday 29th January, 3:15pm tip off away at Bishop Burton College in the Leeds & District Basketball League!